


When the Sun Goes Down

by standinginanicedress



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Organized Crime, Orphan Stiles, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, everyone who's evil in the show is evil in this as well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:46:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 105,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standinginanicedress/pseuds/standinginanicedress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What's your name?” </p><p>He scratches at his cheek. “People call me Stiles.” </p><p>It sounds like something he came up with to make it harder to find him – assuming there's even anyone left to look for him. If he's out here, doing what he does, it's highly probable that he doesn't. “What's your <em>real</em> name?” </p><p>A smile, self-deprecating. “Does it matter? I don't have one anymore.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stilescrying](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilescrying/gifts).



> The tags are light because I figured people would read "organized crime" and mostly get the idea of all that it entails - so yes there's drug use and people getting shot and all that kinda stuff. The non-con tag is mostly in reference to the fact that Stiles is seventeen for the first part of this and getting paid for sex, so it's more of a "theme" for lack of a better word than it is anything graphic or specific. There's no underage tag because Stiles turns eighteen by the time he and Derek do anything which I thought was the most important thing anyway~
> 
> I can't really say in a chapter by chapter fic who all the minor characters who die are in an end note, but a spoiler free statement though is that only one non-evil minor character dies. There's a lot in this fic so it's highly probable that I've forgotten certain things, so feel free to point out anything I neglected to warn people about.
> 
> So when me and my friend were screwing around with this at first we were trying to figure out exactly how "dark" it actually is and I had said "is it darker than the slave au" and she was like "u better believe it is," which says a lot. I know that I don't write a ton of fluff so people don't really expect it from me to begin with for the most part, but this one is apparently darker than what used to be my darkest fic. That said, it has a very happy ending, in my opinion at least lmfao. 
> 
> Anyway the entire thing is finished, as in written and edited and formatted, so I'm just doing chapters for the aesthetic and it'll be the all way up before my spring break ends on Monday.

“Look at this place, Jesus Christ. Is it true that this is one of the worst cities in the country?” She lights her cigarette, leans back against the brick wall outside of the club, and gives Derek a quick once over. He ignores her gaze with a scowl, focusing intently on watching the streetlight above their heads flickering on and off. 

“Across the board, yeah,” her friend tells her, dress glittering in the neon lights. “Worst schools, highest crime rate, a crazy high number of homeless youth -”

“Where are you getting these _fuckin'_ statistics -”

“It's just true! Everyone knows it's true!” 

Derek doesn't know the exact numbers. He tries to ignore all that shit just as much as he ignores people like _this_ whenever they come around the club – outsiders who appear just for the novelty of it all. It doesn't help the situation one bit to go along rattling off facts and figures about just how much the place you live fucking sucks; Derek doesn't need numbers to know it's a shithole. He's lived here long enough to cuss that out for himself. 

“I mean – it's shit here and all. But worst city in America? That seems -”

“Number three. Third worst city in America.” 

_Third_ worst city in America. From Derek's point of view, it's the worst city in the entire god damn world. Everyone would probably be better off if someone managed to saw it off of California, off of the country altogether, send the entire lot of them floating off into the middle of the Pacific. 

The days here tend to all blur into one long weekend. Derek's entire life is, essentially, one long vacation where he sleeps, and he eats, and he goes out, and then he does it all over again. No responsibilities, no one asking after his whereabouts, no one except for the utterly disinterested Lydia Martin keeping watch to make sure that he's not getting himself in trouble. 

Which is a shame, because Derek is nearly always getting into trouble. It's just beneficial for him that he has an entire slew of people to get him out of it until he's back walking the streets again like nothing ever happened. Considering by now he should at least have served a solid four months in a county jail, he thinks himself lucky to have the family that he has. 

He squints at that streetlight buzzing on and off above his head and starts walking away from the women and the club itself – or stumbles, might be more accurate – muttering under his breath about how someone should really _fucking_ fix that. The thing has been flickering for months now, or maybe longer than that. It's a streetlight he knows very, very well, as well as the sidewalk it sits on and the street it's supposed to illuminate. 

The neon lights he walks past are just as garish as they've always been, blue and purple and red and unappealing to anyone who has even half an ounce of self respect. He's been coming here since before he could even talk, sometimes being set up in the corner of the backroom upstairs above the dancefloor with a coloring book, listening to this mother and his uncle go back and forth with one another about things he couldn't understand yet. 

Now, he just frequents it because it isn't like he has anywhere else to go. Anyone he's ever been able to call a friend his entire life has either been an employee behind the bar, working security, or a regular customer pulling ziploc bags of whatever-the-hell out of their pockets and asking him if he wants to _have fun_. Derek's life is all about having _fun_ , but even that said, he can't make himself believe that he's had a single second of genuine fun and enjoyment for years, now. 

Derek forgets the date and the name of the person he wakes up next to, and the next morning it's someone else, and that same night he's back standing underneath this streetlight listening to someone else talk about how terrible Beacon Hills is. 

This expanse of road is his life. It gets depressing when he thinks on it too long, so he doesn't. Usually, he just orders something stronger and blocks it out. 

Tonight, he's drunk and trying to catch a cab because Erica took his car keys and told him to _get the fuck home before you embarrass yourself_ , pacing back and forth as he waits for the inevitable cabby to show up and cart him off, or even the college drunk bus would be a viable option at this point. He's been out here for _hours_. 

Or, twenty minutes. He's not sure. 

Across the street, there's a kid shuffling cards in his hand, leaning back up against the abandoned warehouse Peter keeps saying he's going to use to _expand the business_ , staring directly back at him. Derek squints at him blearily. He recognizes this kid. Recognizing someone around the perimeter of the bar is no unique occurrence, seeing as how it's nearly always the same hundred or so people in a constant rotation, but this is a person who does not look old enough to even skirt by Boyd with a fake ID, no matter how convincing a job it might've been. 

Still, Derek knows he's seen him before. Possibly, he's always standing on this street corner with his cards and his ratty jeans and unkempt hair, and Derek has only ever seen him out of the corners of his eyes or at a safe distance. 

The staring match continues. Derek plans on eyeballing him down until getting a ride, but the kid huffs and straightens up, taking a couple of steps across the sidewalk in Derek's direction. “Hey,” he calls, and Derek blinks at him. “Do you need something?” 

Derek has heard that question many, many times. It's never been a question of if Derek needs help, needs a ride, needs someone to take his drink away from him before he does something fucking stupid – it's always a very fucking different question, when it's asked like _that_. 

He looks both ways across the street, and of course there's no one coming. It's two o'clock in the morning in one of the ugliest parts of town. The only sound for a mile or so is the thrum of the bassline from inside the club, people laughing and drinking – and, of course, the shuffle of cards across the street. A little unsteadily, Derek crosses, hands in his pockets to make himself look casual and not at all blasted drunk. All the same, he gets eyeballed up and down with a bemused smirk, as though this kid knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that he's about to be interacting with someone heavily intoxicated. He looks like he thinks it's funny. 

Derek hops up onto the curb, and they meet halfway in the center of the sidewalk. The cards shuffle some more, and there's a silence. “You wanna see a trick?” He asks, lips pulling up at the corners. 

“A card trick?” Derek clarifies, mouth twisting like he's just tasted something sour. 

The cards fan out in between them, and he gets a raised eyebrow as they meet eyes. “Pick a card. I'm good at it, I promise.” 

Dutifully, because he's drunk enough to go along with it, Derek pilfers a card out of the stack and looks at it. He has to blink a few times to register what it is he's got in his hand, the five of clubs, and then slides it back inside and looks to the kid expectantly. 

The shuffling begins again, and neither of them say anything. Derek is content to just hazily watch his fingers move expertly, like he does this every single night, multiple times a night, as if this is all he does. Stand on a street corner and waggle his eyebrows at passersby as he asks them if they want to see some magic – it'd be funny if it weren't on some level a little sad. 

He holds a single card up in the air between them, with a shit eating grin, and says, “is this what you were looking for?” 

It's the five of clubs, all right. Derek examines the number steadily, and then slides his eyes to where a long finger is pressing a dime bag over the top of the five in the bottom corner of the card. He has to stare at it for a second to fully comprehend what he's seeing; mostly, all he can focus on is the startlingly familiar sight of the blood red _H_ stamped onto the bottom corner of the plastic. 

They meet eyes. “How old are you?” Derek asks. 

He's met with a sigh, and a brown eye roll. “Is there, like, an _age restriction_ on slinging?” 

There should be. There _is_ , as a matter of fact, written somewhere in the Hale family code by Derek's grandfather. Far as he remembers, sixteen year old kids, which is exactly what this one looks like, don't get scooped up by his uncle or Boyd or anyone else to start working corners for them, and that has been the rule since the dawn of fucking time, enforced much more heavily when Talia was in control. And this fucking kid looks like he just got out of history class. 

He's only an inch or so shorter than Derek, but he's thin. His collarbones and shoulders stick out in a way that suggests his last meal was whatever he could buy with the change he found underneath his couch, he's wearing nothing but a white t-shirt covered in dirt and maybe a couple of specks of blood, and jeans that look more lived in than they do artfully distressed. 

“Do you want this?” He waves the card and the illicits in his face, as though he's annoyed, now. “It's about time for me to switch streets, so if you want -”

“Fine,” Derek pulls out his wallet, and in front of him, the teenager seems surprised. He raises his eyebrows and then makes a face like _okay, cool_ , holding out his hand for the money. Derek slaps the ten dollar bill into his hand, and then it gets examined like he's making sure it isn't fake. Derek barely holds back the eye roll. 

Finally, both the weed and the card get dropped into Derek's open and waiting palm. “We appreciate your business,” he sing-songs, winking at him before turning to walk away, down to another corner somewhere. 

Derek makes a face at the card. “I didn't want -”

“It's my calling card,” he's told from over a shoulder. Derek's gotten a lot of _calling cards_ in his time – Erica's used to be a stick of a particular brand of bubblegum, and if he slid it across the counter at the right place, he'd get an ounce pushed back at him, no questions asked. 

Derek watches him walk away, until he's gone around a corner. 

The next morning, or afternoon whatever-the-hell, Derek holds the card and the drugs up in front of his uncle's face and levels him with a stare. Peter blinks at it, like he certainly recognizes it, his mouth slowly forming a cruel smile. “Why did I buy this off a kid who looked sixteen years old outside of Pacers last night?” 

Peter leans back in his office chair, the afternoon sun shining bright through the window behind him, and smiles wider. “What you do with your time is of little to no interest to me,” he says back smoothly. “Why you do what you do is even less -”

“ _A sixteen year old_ ,” Derek repeats, flapping the card around in the air for emphasis. Peter's eyes track it, zooming in on every aspect of the card as though he expects there to be something else written on it, just for him, and Derek is certain then and there that Peter knows where he got this. Who he got it from, more specifically. “We don't recruit teenagers. Or is that something you've conveniently forgotten?” 

When Talia was running things, this was a hard and fast rule that she more or less lived by. As heartless as some people, cops and do-gooders alike, might think that the Hale family ultimately is, one thing that at least gives them some iota of a moral compass is the dedication to _not_ dragging children into a world they won't be able to get out of – unless, of course, in a coffin. Talia used to threaten Derek with that cheesy line whenever she'd catch him with drugs or a gun as a teenager, but evidently, the threat never stuck. 

All the same, if Talia or any of her underlings ever picked a kid up off the side of the road, the most they'd do is drag them to a shelter and tell them to stay the fuck away from Pacers if they knew what was good for them. It always made Derek laugh. Like, sure, we'll put a bullet through anyone's head and traffick illegal drugs all over the Hale half of the city without a care in the world – so long as we're not forcing kids to do our dirty work. 

Now that Talia's dead, maybe he sees the merit in some of her rules. Or, if he doesn't, he at least has enough fucking respect for her and what she believed that he doesn't want to see his fuckbag of an uncle shit all over it like it's nothing to him. 

“There's a dozen ways a kid could've gotten his hands on that to sell it,” he says, all the air of innocence in the world. Derek knows better – he's gone and used the male pronoun even though Derek never said if it was a boy or a girl. “You've never had to sell, Derek, so you don't understand how it works.” 

It's a fair dig. Derek's never done anything, not a single thing, to help the _family business_. He just takes the money and parties and goes to the shooting range a lot. 

“Things get sold and re-sold. Probably, someone sold it to him and he needed money, so he sold it back to you,” he shrugs, like that's the end of the conversation, and leans back in his chair to fit his hands back on top of his laptop keys. 

Derek stares at him for a long moment. He curls his fingers over the card and fits it back inside of his pocket, swallowing and glaring out the window. The yard and the woods beyond it seem to go on endlessly, stretching off into the distance so far that Derek can't see the other side – but he knows that on the other side the Hale half of the city sits, and waits, always for Peter's command. He thinks it fared better waiting for Talia. 

“You swear to me you're not picking up kids,” he puts on his best warning voice, all serious and adult and threatening. “ _Swear_ it.” 

Peter looks at him like he's always looked at him whenever he's tried to exert any kind of dominance over him. It's a lot like the way a grown dog might look at a puppy barking around its paws. “I swear I'm not breaking your mother's precious rules,” he drawls, not a hint of sincerity anywhere in his tone. “Though, if I were, one street urchin isn't anything to burst down the doors of my office about.” 

_One street urchin_. Derek feels like climbing over the top of the desk to punch Peter hard enough to send a handful of his teeth scattering across the floor, hard enough that his blood would drip all over Derek's shirt and hands and make him feel like he's done something for the day. To Peter, everyone has always been expendable. 

Maybe that's the way business like this works, or is supposed to. Everyone who isn't sitting on the throne is someone who can be replaced with another – even Derek could be shot in his sleep and dragged off to a shallow grave somewhere, and most people wouldn't bat an eyelash. Erica might cause a scene, just for the sake of it, but then she'd just find someone else to be her party buddy and move right along with her life. 

It's the core reason why Talia never wanted anyone younger than eighteen working in any level of her empire. She knew better than anyone how easy it would be for a kid to throw their entire life away, here, and she had a fucking soul, or at least half of one, and couldn't live with the blood of children who never knew any better on her hands. Everyone else's blood she practically bathed in, but she had her soft spots. 

Peter has none. Derek knows this and knew it the second he slid the ring on his finger after prying it out of Talia's dead hand. To him, anyone is fair game, so long as he's making enough money to evade any consequences. 

He isn't telling the truth, and Derek knows. There's nothing he can do about it. He gives Peter one last withering stare, which is met with only a smirk and a shrug of shoulders, and turns on his heel to walk out of the office and the house altogether. Huge as it may be, a castle in some respects, whenever Peter is around Derek feels like he's fucking suffocating. It's been that way ever since Talia was found dead, in a bloody heap surrounded by a handful of dead cops, the Sheriff himself included in that pool. It's been two years since then, but still, Derek finds himself wishing that he could either get his mother back somehow or just vanish out of this world altogether. 

He has money in his bank account. He could make a go of it somewhere, _anywhere_ else, far away from his uncle and Pacers and the business. He could do it. 

The trouble is, he can't. It's like his mother always said, and warned him about. The only way you get out of this life once you're inside of it is to bury yourself. And Derek is too much of a coward, he knows he is, so he stays, and drinks, and pretends. He doesn't go near the lackeys, he doesn't speak to a single one of them – Lydia and Erica, his only friends, are the two he tolerates – and he keeps himself on the outskirts. People know his name, and his status, and they fear him on recognition alone. 

But no one's more afraid of him than he is of himself.

+

Derek must spend minutes out of every night for a week tossing and turning that card around in his hands, examining every detail of it. It's dirty, just like its owner's shirt was, like it's been sitting in his back pocket for months, collecting dirt and stains from old ketchup packets. Derek doesn't see him lurking outside of Pacers again, though he goes out of his way to glance up and down the opposite street, searching for any sign of him under a streetlight. Kids in the system are a lot like mice – there's thousands of them, but they lay low, vanish into shelters and alleys and soup kitchens, under the radar, out of the eyes of the cops. It's why they're a smart commodity.

Still. For some reason, Derek can't stop thinking about him. He wonders where he goes at night, what he's doing, if he really knows Peter like Derek strongly suspects that he does, how Peter even found him, and on and on and on. It starts driving him borderline nuts, so he does the only thing he can think to do.

He walks into a seedy bar a couple blocks away from his homestead of Pacers on a Friday night, sits down on a stool, and takes the card out of his pocket. The bartender, a gangly kid with a huge smile who doesn't look nearly old enough to have this job (but it's the fucking slum district, so Derek ignores that), chirps a question of what he wants to drink. He leans over, heedless of who exactly it is he's speaking to, and stares directly into Derek's eyes. 

Derek probably looks like anyone else. He's got a black t-shirt and a dark green coat on, dark jeans, and sneakers. The barkid must peg him as a college student, like any of the other dozen of kids in here waving drink tokens in the air and slurping at pink drinks. 

Of course, that's not who he is. 

Without a word, he slides the playing card across the bar and taps it with his pointer finger. He's met with a blank stare for a second, and then, nervously, the bartender licks his lips and sighs through his nose. “Um.” He says. 

Derek doesn't say anything. He just stares, hard, cold, barely even blinking. 

“That is not a drink token,” is the response he finally gets. Derek looks him up and down, from the sticky, alcohol smelling black shirt, to the nametag that reads _Scott_ in scrawling handwriting with a smiling emoji sticker right beside it. 

“No, it isn't,” Derek says. 

The bartender – Scott – scratches at the back of his neck and looks away, skittish, as though Derek has got him in an interrogation room with a bright light shining directly into his face. “I don't – it only costs ten dollars for five tokens. I can get them for you, if you -”

Derek stares him down, and Scott trails off without having to be told to shut the fuck up. He's positive that Scott must think he's a cop, because Derek is so well kept and showered and clean, and not at all looking like the type of person who would burst into a random bar and slam a drug dealer's card down on the bartop expecting a service. 

So, as his only option, Derek takes his driver's license out of his pocket, and slides that right alongside the five of clubs. Scott leans down to get a look at it, brow furrowing as he reads. Derek recognizes it the exact second that Scott's eyes scan over the name – his whole body reacts to the information. He steps back, an entire step away from the bar, and puts his hands up, by his shoulders, as though he's about to surrender even though Derek hasn't even pulled a gun on him. 

He meets Derek's eyes, jaw dropped, and then looks back to the card in between them once again. “Okay,” he says, probably to himself. “You're Derek Hale. Okay.” Like Derek has said. He has name recognition; the issue is, most people have no idea what he looks like or the places aside from Pacers he frequents. “It's Derek Hale. Derek Hale is sitting at the bar,” he goes on, and Derek squints at him, cocking his head to the side. 

If he didn't know any better, he'd think that Scott was somehow communicating with another person. Through a wire or a walkie talkie or even if someone was just on the other side of the bar mirror, listening in to every thing. He narrows his eyes and taps one finger on the bar, before snatching his license away and stuffing it back into his pocket. “Yeah, I'm Derek Hale. You know who this belongs to?” 

“Nope,” Scott immediately says. He's a horrible liar. 

“Do you need me to _remind_ you?” 

“Oh, my God.” There's genuine fear there, and Derek almost laughs. Truthfully, Derek wouldn't do anything to this kid. He'd maybe knock him around a little bit, just because he could, but Scott likely thinks Derek would take him out into the alley and shoot him in the back of the head. Derek wouldn't do that. He's pretty sure he wouldn't. 

He's about to open his mouth to threaten it anyway, when he notices someone skirting towards the backdoor, awkwardly, like a crab. He scuttles a bit sideways, keeping his back to where Derek and Scott are talking so that neither of them can see his face. It doesn't matter anyway, because he's made the mistake of having a mop of instantly recognizable hair on top of his head, along with a birth mark stamped onto the back of his neck. 

Scott holds his hand out, maybe to stop him, but Derek's already on his feet. “ _Hey_ ,” he snaps, and that does it. Without even looking over his shoulder, the kid is scrambling in a run across the wooden floor of the bar at top speed, all long legs and flailing arms, before throwing his body against the back door until it opens and sends him spilling out into the darkness of the alley beyond. 

Derek curses under his breath, gives Scott a warning glare that says _if you fucking follow me and try to stop me I'll do something horrible_ , which Scott takes at face value and meeps, and then Derek runs himself out the back door. 

He works out, so he's fast. At least, faster than a kid who doesn't eat enough and likely spends his time either shooting up or digging around in dumpsters. Case in point, he manages to catch an arm and shove the entire smaller body against the brick wall before his charge can even make it ten feet down the alleyway. 

He presses his forearm up against a long pale neck and keeps it there, even as bony fingers scramble to scratch and claw at it. “Oh, fuck -” he wheezes, kicking his legs out uselessly. 

“You're not in trouble,” Derek assures him – it apparently is no real reassurance, because the spastic struggling just gets worse. Derek gets kneed in the balls, not with a lot of strength but the boniness of the knee itself is the real killer, and grunts. 

“I'm not stealing your stuff!” He caws, abruptly going limp as he realizes that fighting might actually just make everything worse. “I swear, I swear to fucking Jesus lord in heaven, please don't kill me, holy _shit_ -”

“I'm not going to kill you,” Derek says. And he means it. “I don't even want to _hurt_ you, but you're making this more difficult than it has to be.” 

He gets a wary and disbelieving eye for that, and he knows it's fair to not be trusted just yet. He is, after all, Derek Hale, and the stories they tell about him are so fantastical he's amazed anyone believes it. The dregs, the kids living out of shelter beds, must believe them all like Biblical fucking truth – the one he has pinned to a wall right now must think he's either about to get his eyeballs eaten out of his skull or his guts ripped out slowly, one by one. 

“I need to ask you a question,” he presses his arm just a little bit harder against the flesh and bones of his neck in warning, “and I expect the truth. I'll know if you lie to me.” 

Even a little handicapped from the arm restricting him, the kid nods frantically up and down. 

Derek sizes him up again, taking in the huge brown eyes and the messy hair and the dirty cheeks, like he slept in a dumpster. He swallows, bizarrely feels like taking him and giving him a proper meal for probably the first time in months, and sets his jaw. “Do you know my uncle?” 

“Peter?” 

The casual way that he says it is damning enough, but Derek nods his assent. “You know him? You know him personally? Met him?” 

“We -” he coughs, wheezes, and Derek realizes he's started pressing too hard. He curses and mutters an apology, pulling the arm completely off and away, choosing to hold him steady with a hand against his chest, instead. As soon as he catches his breath, he starts talking again. “We've met before, like...it was a lot less pomp and circumstance than this,” he gestures in between himself and Derek, and Derek scowls, “but we -”

“He asked you to sell for him?” 

A furrowed brow. “No?” 

That's not the answer that Derek was expecting, but there's no trace of mistruth or a flat out lie anywhere in his body language. He looks genuinely confused by the question. “Then why are you selling Hale product?” 

Sheepishly, the kid looks away to stare down the alley, cheeks coloring like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I sell whatever I get my hands on, and Hale stuff is all over this part of the city, you know?” All over the Hale half of Beacon Hills, at least, and that seems to be where he spend most of his time. Wandering over to Raeken territory is never a good idea, anyway, no matter who you are. “I wasn't – I swear on my shitty life I never stole it, I just happened upon it, like anyone else happens upon anything. I wouldn't steal from the Hales, like – I'm not – I'm not trying to get whacked off, you know?” 

He jabbers on nervously and Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. “How _old_ are you?” 

There's a beat of hesitation. “Twenty.” 

Derek looks at him steadily from between his fingers, a no nonsense glare that works on literally everyone, and brown eyes skirt away again. 

“Okay. Eighteen.” Another beat, and then he throws his hands in the air. “Seventeen. Like I said, there's no age limit on when I can sling,” he puffs himself up, even with Derek Hale standing inches away from him, and tries to look bigger, tougher. It must work on the fourteen year olds scrounging for LSD and ex, but to Derek, it just looks like a little kid playing dress up, almost. “Am I – what is this about?” 

Derek rubs his jaw and frowns. “You said you met Peter,” he begins, and receives a nod in response. “Where?” Peter doesn't exactly go down to visit the shelters or any other club aside from the one he actually owns, so he can't imagine that he and random street dealing kids would have many places to intersect. 

He looks uncomfortable. He glares down at his hands, something like shame coloring his features, before he looks back up and meets Derek's eyes head on, as though convincing himself he has nothing to be ashamed of. “Card tricks aren't the only ones I pull, you know?” 

They stare at each other. A seventeen year old kid who sleeps with people and sells drugs for money and a twenty-three year old fuck up with more money than he knows what to do with, holding each other's eye contact in the back alley of a shitty bar on the south end of Beacon fucking Hills. 

It's not that it's a surprise, necessarily, that his uncle has gone out and occasionally picked up a hooker. The man might be a sadist who has no concerns for anyone but himself, so of course, he bribes hungry and homeless teenagers with hot pizzas and gets them inside of his car. It's not shocking, but Derek can't help but feel lightheaded. He's suspected it, always, but something about having an actual victim of Peter's treachery right here in front of him, telling him that this _happened_...it makes his stomach churn. Bizarrely, he thinks, _Peter doesn't even like men_ , but then he thinks, _this isn't a man_ , and that's the last thought he can really think before he almost throws up. 

Derek tries to hide the horror, because he doesn't want him to feel like Derek is judging him. Instead, he schools his face into something less disgusted. “What's your name?” 

He scratches at his cheek. “People call me Stiles.” 

It sounds like something he came up with to make it harder to find him – assuming there's anyone even left to look for him, anymore. “What's your _real_ name?” 

A smile, self-deprecating. “Does it matter? I don't have one anymore.” 

Likely, Stiles doesn't have a home, or parents, or friends, or a name, or anything except the jeans he's wearing and that same crusty old white shirt. He feels responsible for this kid, now, after attacking him more or less and interrogating him for information on a hunch that turned out to not be true. Not to mention the fact that his own uncle has coerced him into doing something he felt he had no choice but to do. 

So, he points to the backdoor of the bar. “You staying here?” 

Stiles follows where his finger is pointing, and then shrugs. “They give me the fries that come out too crispy, sometimes. The bartender is my friend,” he glares at his hands, again, a nervous tic he must have picked up from somewhere. “He can't do much. I try to stay away. I was just -” he glares harder, and Derek is afraid that he might start to cry. “...I'm hungry.” 

For fuck's sake, Derek thinks, raising his eyes to the sky. Without a doubt, he's responsible for this. He's dragged him out and harassed and threatened him, and he's standing there looking like he weighs eighty pounds wet and nearly crying over how hungry he is, and the best prospect he has for food is burnt fries. 

Derek's not a good person. He's not even a particularly decent person, all things said and done. But like his mother, he has his soft spots. 

He grabs Stiles by his upperarms and begins carting him off down the alley. “Come on,” he says, gritting it out through his teeth. 

“Hey,” Stiles struggles, fruitlessly punching and skidding his feet against the alley. He's been dragged a lot of places against his will, Derek would wager. “ _Hey_ , I don't wanna go anywhere.” 

“I'm taking you to the shelter,” he says, no room for argument. 

“I don't wanna _go_ -”

“They have hot food and a warm bed and a shower,” Derek talks over him as they spill out into the main street. If anyone sees this, a grown man maneuvering a struggling teenager into a fancy sports car, they all turn away. It's probably commonplace enough on this side of the tracks that people have learned to just shake their heads and cluck their tongues, but do absolutely nothing about it. Ever since the Sheriff got shot, people are less inclined to call the police, and even sometimes, the police are less inclined to show up. 

“I hate it there,” Stiles argues, even as the passenger door is opening and he's being shoved unceremoniously inside. 

“You'd rather starve and die out here?” Derek gestures to the streets, half empty, ugly, dirty, and Stiles frowns. He doesn't say anything, and stays immobile for a long time. Then, he swings his legs inside the car, and Derek closes the door for him. 

Once Derek is inside and starting the engine, he can actually _smell_ Stiles for the first time since they've met. And holy hell, he doesn't smell nice. He smells like weed, and alcohol, and ninety-nine cent bubble gum lube. It baffles him that anyone would want sex so bad they'd turn to a dirty teenager with hunger lines all over his face, but people are shitty and terrible, so maybe it's not that baffling at all. 

“Which one?” Stiles asks, glancing longingly inside the window of the bar as Derek pulls away from the curb and drives him off. 

Derek thinks for a second. “Saint Mary's,” he decides. 

“Oh,” Stiles sounds a little pleased, as pleased as he can be in the situation. “They have macaroni and cheese, sometimes.” 

He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, slowing at a stop sign. “You go to these places a lot?” 

“No,” he shrugs, lifting his leg up to press a dirty sneaker into the fabric of Derek's leather seat, perching his chin on his knee. “I get pulled in a lot, and they always dump me into one of the shelters after.”

Pulled in, meaning, he gets picked up by the police and they interrogate him about where he gets the drugs, or if he's seen a man that looks like _this_ , or if he's going to help them pinpoint where one of the Hales is, or one of the Raekens. Stiles probably leans back in that squeaky interrogation room chair, chugs the soda and chews the candy bar they give him, and shrugs his way through it. There's only so much the cops can do with a teenaged hooker before it starts to look bad, so it's to the shelter, and then back to the streets to do it all over again. 

“You should go more,” Derek says, just for something to say. “They can – you know. Help you.” 

There's a stretch of silence. When Derek turns to look at what Stiles is doing, he finds the teenager staring at him with an incredulous, somewhat mocking, smile on his face. “Oh?” He says, one eyebrow raising. “Derek Hale is going to tell me to suit up and be a good boy?” 

Derek levels him with a hard stare. Stiles might be starting to think of him as somewhat softer than he's been portrayed as, because he doesn't back down so much this time. He just raises his eyebrows higher and grins with all his teeth. 

“It just seem hypocritical,” he goes on, shrugging yet again. “I mean – I'm street trash. I do what I have to just to, like, live. But on the criminal scale, I'm like, a two. Maybe a three. You, on the other hand, are a solid ten.” 

“You don't know anything about me,” Derek says, shaking his head. 

“You don't know anything about me,” Stiles parrots back to him, pointing to himself. “I don't fucking need help. Not from the nuns at the shelter, and not from people like you.” 

Tough guy act, Derek thinks, with a roll of his eyes. Stiles is really going to sit there in the only set of clothes he owns chirping about how he can _make it on his own_. Stiles is going to die on his own, if he keeps this up, but Derek bites that one down. He's still a kid. “That's why you're letting me drive you to the shelter right now, then, huh?” 

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest and glares out the window, but doesn't say a word. He's remembering nearly crying in the alley about needing food, and he's ashamed and embarrassed and humiliated and alone, so Derek doesn't push the issue any farther. He's not a complete fucking asshole, after all. 

As they pull up outside of the dingy looking building by the hospital, all lit up even at this hour of the night, a nun sitting at the reception area in front of the computer probably watching funny cat videos or whatever nuns do on the internet, Derek takes a second to hold onto Stiles' arm before he can get out. “Take care of yourself,” he says, because it's all he can think to say. There's not much else he _can_ say. It doesn't matter what he says. 

Stiles blinks at him, and then shakes the hand off and climbs out of the car. He slams the door behind him, hard, like he's mad. 

Derek watches as Stiles pushes through the glass doors, watches as the nun instantly recognizes him and greets him with a blanket and a hug, and then gets eyeballed himself like she's about to come out there and smack Derek with a ruler. More likely than not, she suspects him of being one of Stiles' clients. 

She takes Stiles off down a hallway, hopefully to where a shower is waiting for him, and Derek drives away.

+

“I'm just a girl,” Erica adjusts her dress and flips her hair over her shoulder in testament to this, her six hundred dollar wallet clutched in between one hand as she scowls behind her sunglasses. “And I'm tired. I can only do so much, and he acts like it's not enough, when I'm doing my _best_.”

Derek nods his head. He's heard this rant from her upwards of a dozen times by now, and has learned to just nod along and act like he's listening. Erica doesn't really want him to offer any advice anyway, since there's none to give. She just loves having a sounding board, which is half of why she and Boyd even wound up together in the first place. Boyd will sit there stoically and listen and drink and say _man, that's fucked up_ , and she'll say, _I know, right_? 

“I do everything he asks me to and he acts like I'm a burden,” she looks down the sidewalk as people walk past, some giving her a casual up and down that she's used to by now. “I'm not a fucking twenty year old lackey anymore, I'm supposed to be important.” 

She climbed her way up the ranks from a girl at the bar who'd flip her hair and slide ounces across the table up to eating at expensive restaurants while other people she collected and hired do the dirty work for her. Really, Peter owes her a debt of gratitude for dealing with the addicts and fuckups they have wandering the streets for them, but he does have a tendency to treat her like she's still just another one of them. He's an asshole. 

Among other things. 

“Whatever,” she sniffs, gesturing towards the diner with an imperious hand, “I want my coffee.” 

Derek nods again and locks the car. They've been standing on the sidewalk outside of it ever since Erica started talking, a good ten minutes ago, watching passersby. He follows behind her through the glass door, and it rings to signal their arrival. The waitress that always works on Saturday mornings, a pretty girl whose name tag reads _Allison_ in swooping black script, smiles at them genially from behind the counter. 

“The usual?” She asks, tapping her pen on top of her notepad. 

“Make mine a triple,” Erica tells her with a broad grin, pushing a twenty over the counter. “And keep the change.” 

Allison probably loves it whenever they come for coffee, because they always tip generously. It's something left over from when Talia was still around, and Derek and Erica were more or less raised in the business underneath her tutelage. Whenever there's a kid busting their ass in food service or bartending or actually trying to make it the hell out of Beacon Hills, they tip them extra. It's the most they can ever do. 

She smiles and sets off to work, revving up the cappuccino machine and pulling two large hot takeaway cups off of their stack. Derek leans against the counter and listens as Erica make comments about where they should go for dinner or if they should go to the club – or, at least, he half listens. Mostly, he watches Allison work and trails his eyes all around the rest of the diner, a familiar place that he's been coming to since he started getting his own share of the money. 

He looks down the row of pastel booths, noticing some other regulars and a few strangers, before he lands on a familiar mess of brown hair and a prominent birth mark. He squints, as though he has to make sure of what he's actually seeing, and sure enough – it's Stiles. 

He's bent over a large pile of what looks like pennies and nickels, counting them meticulously with his long fingers, separating them into stacks. There's a mug of coffee sitting next to him, but nothing else aside from an untouched silverware bundle and a sugar shaker. Derek doesn't need to be a detective to figure out that he can't afford anything else but the coffee, and even then, watching him obsessively counting that change, he'd say he can barely afford that. 

Derek rubs his forehead. He had thought that he would shuck Stiles off to the shelter and never see him again, or only see him in passing outside of Pacers every now and again, but apparently now that Derek has noticed him once, he's going to keep on noticing him for weeks to come. It's been three days since Derek saw him last, and that's probably three days since the last time he ate something that wasn't ninety-nine cents from a mini mart, or slept in a real bed. 

Allison comes back with the coffees, and Erica scoops hers up, turning to leave. Derek hesitates, mutters a curse under his breath, and pulls out his wallet.

“Can you do me a favor?” He asks Allison, who nods and smiles. Her job is doing customers favors, after all. Pulling a twenty out – he'd give more, but he shudders to think of Stiles using his money to load his arms with track marks – he hands it to her and gestures to where Stiles is sitting. “Give this to that kid and tell him to get what he wants.” 

Allison blinks, looking between the money and Stiles, and then she nods her head and looks almost relieved that _someone_ is going to feed Stiles. It's possible that Stiles comes here often, sitting and drinking the coffee and paying in nickels and dimes. Beside him, Erica slurps her coffee and peers down the booths to get a look at Stiles herself, and then she snorts. 

“A little charity work today, Derek?” 

Derek pockets his wallet and takes the hot coffee waiting for him, hightailing it out of there before Stiles can look over and spot him. “Something like that.” 

“Aw,” she pats him on the back as they leave, mocking him, really, but Derek knows she would never genuinely mock him for doing something that wasn't terrible, for once. “You've grown soft in your old age.” 

“Don't act like you've never done the same,” he tells her as he unlocks the car. Before she climbs in, she gives Derek a blank look, and then a small smile, and ducks her head to get in the car. Erica has more than just done the same before – she used to _be_ that kid counting pennies at restaurants. She knows better than anyone else what it's fucking like.

He starts the engine, and glances sidelong through the wide window of the diner just in time to see Allison talking to Stiles at his table. She's nodding her head, smiling at him the same way she does to everyone, and then points a finger to where Derek and Erica are still sitting in the car on the side of the street. Stiles turns, locks eyes with Derek, and frowns. He might have also thought that he wouldn't be seeing Derek ever again, but now here they are, staring at each other through two layers of glass after Derek paid for his food. 

Stiles blinks at him, and then leans closer to the window. He mouths, very clearly, _FUCK. YOU._ , but then his face splits into a grin and he rips the menu Allison has waiting for him out of her hands and starts emphatically pointing to things. Allison smiles, writes down what he asks, and Derek feels relieved. 

That's at least one more day this week Stiles won't have to do something terrible just to feed himself. Why he cares about that, he doesn't know. 

It could partly be because one of the people who apparently feeds him otherwise, though not without any strings attached, is Derek's own uncle. 

Today, Peter is in a suit. He's standing in front of a window that overlooks most of the city, all the way from the high rises and fashion stores, down to the outskirts with the bars and the streetlights that never get fixed. He looks across the room, to where the handful of people he considers to be _at the top_ , though no higher than him, are all sitting at a table. Erica, for one, is on her phone and smacking bubblegum between her teeth like she could give a fuck, Laura and Lydia blankly glare straight ahead at the walls, and Boyd looks like he's about to fall right to sleep, while Derek leans back in his chair and does his level best to not think about Peter putting his hands on that stupid street urchin kid. 

They have these meetings every now and again, and Derek knows that there's no real point to them. Peter barks out orders at everyone, tells them they're all doing shitty jobs at what they're supposed to, and then sends them off without another word. It's, at best, a shoddy attempt at trying to remind them all who's in charge, at the end of the day. 

Talia never had to do that. No one ever needed to be reminded who ran everything back when she was the one calling the shots. Apparently, Peter feels insecure enough in his position that he feels the need to belittle everyone around him just to emphasize the point. 

“...if Erica wants to continue pulling useless addicts into every level of what we do -”

Erica drops her phone and leans forward, her necklace dangling over the glass top of the meeting table as she does so. “You said you wanted low level,” she reminds him in an even tone of voice, while everyone around her shifts in their seats and looks uncomfortable. “I got you low level. If you want fucking rogues scholars, maybe you should consider a new line of work.” 

Peter smiles at her. It is not a kind smile. It's like watching a wolf pull its muzzle back to show prey its teeth. “If you want to keep your place, maybe you should watch your tone.” 

Erica opens her mouth to retort, to argue, to start screaming, maybe, but then she snaps her jaw shut with a click of her teeth and leans back, effectively silenced. As much as Erica might actually want to get the hell out of this, she can't – maybe she's afraid of having to go out and start all over again, working the bottom level, or maybe she's afraid she couldn't even do that. She might wind up like Stiles. It keeps her awake at night, thinking about that. Better to suffer under Peter than to wind up without him, she figures. 

Peter waves his hand dismissively and glares out the window, down onto the streets. “It doesn't matter. I want you to replace all of them with people who can actually remember their own names when they're asked.” 

With a sigh, Erica pushes her hair behind her ear and nods. “I can do that,” she says through grit teeth. “I'll fire them, and -”

“I didn't say fire them,” Peter turns around and doesn't look directly at Erica. He just scans his eyes over the room, each and every person there, Derek included, like he's addressing everyone instead of just her. “I want you to get rid of them.” 

Erica pauses for just a moment. She does her best not to react, because she should be able to hear something like that and just not react, by now, but her fingers twitch and she can't help the startled blink. “That seems extreme,” she says evenly.

Everyone exchanges glances, because yes, yes it certainly does. They're talking about the five twenty-something fuck-ups that Erica has roaming a specific area in Hale-controlled Beacon Hills, one of the worst parts – actually down by where Stiles seems to have set up camp, near the bar his friend Scott bartends at. They're at the literal bottom of the rung, a handful of addicts that mean nothing in the long run, that could be just let go and never seen or heard from again. 

Derek can't think of a good reason to _kill them_ , but Peter apparently can. 

“They know too much,” he shrugs. Derek wants to say they know nothing, not a single god damn thing, except for Erica's fake name and the number of a burner phone she keeps and replaces every two weeks. They know meet-up points, a big black escalade, and a pretty blonde girl who never shows them her eyes. If they can even _remember_ that much. “I can't have liabilities running around the city, can I?” 

Erica purses her lips. She doesn't know these people, not at all, but she knows their faces and their voices and has spent two months working with them, and now she has to arrange to have them killed. It should be peanuts to her, considering that out of everyone in this room, she's shot and killed the most people. This is something that everyone who knows her name knows – something she actually holds pride in. But then, there's something different about killing someone who's a legitimate threat, and killing someone who doesn't know up from down. 

“Nobody will notice,” Peter says with another dismissive hand wave, before shoving both hands down into his pockets. “If you actually manage to find people worth keeping, this won't be a fucking problem again.” 

She nods, head down, and doesn't meet Derek's eyes across the table. 

“I have to have complete and total order of everything that goes on inside of this business,” Peter starts, opening up another one of his half-crazed rants about _structure_ and _order_ and _keeping things in the family_. “If even one thing tilts out of place, the entire infrastructure of what I've built here will come tumbling down, and all of us will go down with it.” 

Talia is the one who built the infrastructure of things the way they know them today. It seems that Peter is the one hellbent on fucking ripping it apart, beam by beam, brick by brick. 

“I can't have untrustworthy people working in any level. Bottomfeeders they might be, but all collapses start at ground level,” he stares at the side of Erica's face. “I want them gone by tonight, or you'll have to join them.” 

Erica pretends like nothing ever phases or frightens her, straightening up in her chair and nodding like it's no problem, not at all, just another day on the job. But Derek knows her well enough to see the cracks in the facade, the purse of her lips, the frantic motion of her fingers across the keyboard of her phone. 

Not for the first time, Derek seriously considers telling Peter to go off and fuck himself. Everyone in the room, Boyd and Lydia and Laura, they all know that this isn't about removing liabilities. Peter knows as well as anyone else does that a handful of heroin addicts peddling shit in the part of the town the cops hardly ever visit aren't a fucking issue, not to the extent he's making them out to be. They'd find themselves dead within a week whether Peter ordered it or not. 

It's about power, like it always is. He's reminding them all, under the guise of a business meeting, that he can do things like this. He can make them kill people for him, he can make them sell whatever he wants them to, and he can make them sit here and listen to him and believe every word that he says. 

Most importantly, he can kill _them_. If he wants to. Derek always thought that he and Laura might be two people safe from that threat, but lately, Derek has started to wonder if his uncle isn't cracking under the pressure, going even more off the hinges than he already was to begin with. 

As they file into the hallway, the potted plants and the bland blue carpeting, Lydia takes Derek by the arm and pulls him off to the side. She's got her hair pulled up into a messy bun, dark circles under her eyes, and her sweater looks like it's been slept in. Derek purses his lips. This is out of sorts, for her, but then again, he can't say he's had much one on one time with her since Talia died, so maybe this is the new normal where she's concerned. 

“I hear you've got a new friend,” she says, no introduction. Derek cocks his head to the side and frowns. 

“Who?” 

She sighs through her nose and snaps her fingers in his face, as if she's asking him to wake up and fucking pay attention. “The teenager you're driving to shelters and buying food for.” 

Of course she'd know all about that. It is part of her job, after all, to be the eyes and ears of the city, to track everyone who could fuck them over and remove them if she suspects them of doing just that. “It's – he's not my friend,” he insists, and she smiles at him thinly. “He's – you know.” 

Lydia does know. Not only just because she likely followed him around to make sure he wasn't anything to worry about (probably, she saw him selling, getting into cars, going to motels, and then crashing wherever he can to get up and do it all over again – not exactly the most fascinating two days she could've had, Derek's sure), but because she knows his type. “I never pegged you as the type to take in strays.” 

“I haven't taken him in,” he shakes his head emphatically. Taking him in would be taking him back to his place, and Derek – isn't doing that. Not anytime soon. 

“You're watching out for him,” she gets this smug look on her face, like Derek is finally fulfilling some sneaking suspicion she's had about him all this time. 

“I'm just – he's in trouble.” 

“He is,” she agrees. She and Derek aren't that much older than him, it's true, but there's a gigantic gap between seventeen and on the streets and twenty-three and standing in a posh office building with hundred dollar bills in their pockets. She smiles at him one last time, like he's a little kid who's gotten a math problem right, and then flits down the hall to go pester someone else or squat behind a potted plant to snap pictures of an unsuspecting stranger. 

Derek convinces himself that he's just doing what any half decent human being would do. He just keeps running into Stiles, and he can't leave him by himself to go out and do something he can't take back, so he just steps in sometimes. It's not that huge of a deal. It's not as though he actively seeks Stiles out, or goes searching for his name on shelter check-in sheets to make sure he's still prowling around and getting himself in some semblance of order. It's just...Derek thinks about him. 

Thinks about him as in, he starts seriously considering calling the police department to ask if he's been brought in recently, or if they've found a body that matches his specifications. Just to make sure. 

That, to him, feels extreme. Plus, Derek Hale walking into the police station looking for a lost teenage hooker? It wouldn't look good. And, it wouldn't end well. And Peter would probably chop his head off and put it on a spike as a display in his office. 

So, he takes an alternative route. He walks back into the bar where Stiles' friend works, and scans the room looking for Scott himself. It takes him a second, but he spots him spraying windex on a window and furiously wiping grime off of it with a paper towel. He doesn't even look up, as the bell chimes, just yells over his shoulder that they're closed until four o'clock. 

Derek starts walking closer anyway, and that's when Scott finally turns around. He's got this look on his face like he's about to start yelling at him, or pulling the baseball bat out from behind the bar to beat whoever it is out of here. When he sees that it's Derek, he shrinks back a bit, dropping the bottle of windex with a hard _thud_ on the floor. 

“Oh, my God,” he says, and Derek sighs. 

“I'm not here to cause a scene,” he says, but Scott keeps his defensive stance even as he presses his back against the wall as far from Derek as he can possibly get. “I just need to talk to you about something -”

“No way,” Scott snaps, shaking his head. “I know what happens to people who just – just _talk_ to a Hale. They don't come back.” 

Derek has to force himself to not laugh out loud. “Stories like that are really just exaggerations. They might be true about my uncle,” even just the title of _uncle_ has Scott shaking his head fervently in fear, “but I'm not my uncle.” 

“Like I'm going to believe that,” his eyes start skirting over to the open closet, where the handle for a mop is sitting there waiting for him to grab and use as a weapon. Derek rolls his eyes. 

He gives up on trying to convince Scott that he's not a serial killer, and instead goes straight to the jugular. “I want to ask you about Stiles.” 

At that, Scott actually pushes himself up and away from the wall, bridges the gap between he and Derek by a safe margin, and then points a finger in Derek's face. “You _stay away_ from him.” 

Derek holds his hands up. It's a reverse situation from the one they were in when the two of them first met, and Scott knows it. He blinks in surprise, but still doesn't look entirely convinced that Derek means no harm. “I just want to ask you a few questions.” 

“He doesn't need more people like _you_ ,” he sneers the word, disgust coloring his tone. Derek can only imagine what other kinds of people associated with Stiles that Scott has come to know. “...sniffing around and using him.” 

“I've done nothing to him,” he swears, and Scott doesn't believe it. 

“What exactly is it that you want from him?” He demands, stepping closer again as though this particular subject suddenly makes him not that afraid of Derek anymore. “You want him to be one of your little workers?” 

Derek looks away, down the rows of empty bar stools, to the jukebox playing on quiet in the corner, and then looks back to meet Scott's eyes. “I want him to get his life together.” 

There's a long pause, where Scott stares at Derek's face and calculates every thing there. The set of his jaw, his eyes, his hair, the clothes he's wearing, _everything_. Derek wonders what he finds or sees, because after a second, a tiny inch of the tension in his shoulders recedes, leaving him looking a lot less angry. “Join the fucking club.” He turns and scoops the windex bottle up again, goes back to squirting it a little vindictively. 

Derek walks further into the bar and hovers behind him, watching as the mound of dirty paper towels piles up, higher and higher as he works. “What happened?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean...clearly, he wasn't always doing this.” 

Scott pauses, something bare and vulnerable crossing his face as he remembers whatever it is that's got them both here, and then starts scrubbing with renewed vigor a second later. “Stiles' father died two years ago,” he begins, voice low. “We were in high school. His mother had gone a few years before that, so they stuck him into the foster system.” 

Ah. That's about as much information as Derek needs to know. Kids who get forced into the foster system wind up on one of two paths – either you get sent out of Beacon Hills and miraculously find yourself someplace better, or you stay here, get into trouble, evade the system, and wind up...well. Like Stiles. Still, Scott keeps talking. 

“My mom tried to adopt him, when things went bad, but he...” he clenches his jaw, shakes his head. “He ran away. I didn't know where he was for about a year, and by the time I did...” it was too late. Even if Scott's mother picked him up and gave him a whooping for being such a fucking idiot, he would've just climbed out the window and run off to start all over again. Kids like Stiles, they get that way. It's anyone's guess as to why they'd choose living on the streets over a warm bed and an adoptive mother who'd love and care for them, but they get into a mindset, and they stick to it. 

“Now, I work here,” he gestures to the bar, in all its dingy, ugly glory. “It's the only thing I can do to make sure he's not lying dead in a ditch somewhere, and it's barely enough. The owners only let me give so much free food away, sympathetic as they are.” 

Derek rubs the back of his head, and doesn't know what to say. Stiles' back story is the same as dozens of other kids just like him – only, maybe Stiles is even luckier than they are. They didn't all have friends like Scott willing to work in the shittiest, scariest part of town just to watch over them as best they could. “Does he use?” 

“No,” Scott says quickly, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. He wouldn't.” He collects the paper towels into a wad and dumps them into a near by trash can. And then he laughs, humorlessly. “Honestly, I don't know. I haven't noticed anything, but I...” 

Neither has Derek. No track marks, no red rimmed eyes, no fidgeting, no nothing he would expect to see from any other kid who samples the shit he's meant to be slinging. But in all honesty, that doesn't mean anything. 

“I know it seems like I'm not doing anything,” Scott says, eyes glued to the floor with intensity. “But I'm trying my hardest to keep him from absolutely vanishing off the face of the planet, and he's not making it easy. And I'm only eighteen, I don't know what to do, I'm just – trying.” 

The only option Scott might have is getting him flat out arrested for selling drugs. At his age, he could be tried as an adult and shipped off to a federal prison somewhere for months at a time. Scott just might not know which is worse, the streets, or prison, and keeps his mouth shut because he's too scared to act. Derek can't in good conscience send Stiles off, either, so he doubts he'll be doing anything like that himself. 

Scott is doing his best; food and someplace warm to sit every now and again. Someone to come to if something goes bad. It's as much as he can do, and it's probably saved Stiles' life more times than he can count. He thinks about telling Scott this, to make him feel better – but he's not that great of a person, so he just nods and turns to walk out. 

“You really care that much, you should do something yourself,” Scott calls at his retreating back, even as the door is slamming shut behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter has imperiously requested Derek's presence tonight. It's annoying when it happens to begin with, any time of day, anywhere, anytime, but it's especially annoying when he insists on being fucking clandestine about it. The sheer number of times Derek has met with him in the backroom at Pacers or the VIP section, being forced to endure the thrumming of the bass with a hangover, must be astronomical at this point. 

For whatever reason, tonight he's insisted on being particularly secretive. He gives Derek an address that leads out into the warehouse district, a couple of blocks away from Scott's bar, where the city is silent except for the distant noise of the occasional police siren or ambulance. When he pulls up, he sees Peter's familiar stretch limousine parked, and sighs. This is sure to be a really, really fun time. He has a passing thought that Peter has dragged him out here to kill him, and feels nothing aside from a vague sense of _well, sure_ , and climbs out of his car. 

As he approaches, Boyd opens up the driver's door and swings around front. He looks at Derek with some level of dread, and Derek thinks _oh Christ, tonight really is the night_ , but then again, if Peter were honestly trying to kill him, Boyd would not volunteer for the job as chauffeur. 

Boyd walks over to him, pauses before opening the door, and says, “I did my best.” 

Derek knows better than to inquire any further, just nods his head once in understanding, and watches as the door is opened up for him. From this angle, all he can see is Peter's legs, stretching out in front of himself, and a second pair that he doesn't recognize. 

When he leans down to get inside and sees that it's Stiles, he has a split second thought of pulling the gun he has on his hip and shooting Peter directly in between the eyes. It comes, that thought, and then it goes. He clears his throat, and gets in. 

He sits on the bench opposite of where Peter and Stiles are sitting, and assesses the situation. 

Stiles is in his usual garb, a different shirt and jeans this time, maybe pilfered from a Good Will bin, but he's got the same unkempt hair and angry expression. He has a tumbler of what looks like whiskey in one hand, resting on his thigh, and he meets Derek's eyes briefly, before looking away. It seems as though he's pointedly pretending like he barely knows Derek, has only spoken to him that one time outside of Pacers with the playing cards. It's smarter than Derek can give him credit for, but it also speaks to the fact that Stiles knows good and well just how dangerous Peter is.

Peter, for his part, sits as casual as ever, like this is just something that happens all the time. Meeting his nephew on the outskirts of town while a teenaged whore sits next to him, not a care in the world. “Nice of you to join us,” he drawls, taking a sip of his own drink. Derek nods his head. 

“Sure.” 

“I take it you recognize this,” he points a thumb in Stiles' direction, and Derek nods again. He might spend this entire meeting bobbing his head up and down like one of those dashboard dogs, because he honestly doesn't think he'll be able to make himself say anything out loud – the shock from seeing Stiles in this situation, sticking out like a sore thumb against the fine leather and champagne glasses, is still heavy in his mind. “I thought we should clear the air after our conversation last week.” 

Derek looks at Stiles, who's dutifully staring into his whiskey like it holds the secrets of the universe, and then looks back to Peter. “What do you mean.” 

“I mean,” he leans over to the minibar and picks up the plate of cheese and crackers sitting among the bottles of alcohol, depositing it in Stiles' lap, “how you blatantly accused me of breaking one of Talia's cardinal rules.” 

Stiles builds himself a cheese and cracker sandwich, two crackers with a slice of cheddar wedged between them, and it's so childish and stupid that Derek has to look away. This situation he's in right now is such a stark contrast, it makes him uncomfortable. “I wasn't accusing you of anything.” 

Peter smiles at him. “Of course. You'd never do that.” 

The silence, aside from Stiles crunching as he eats, lasts for much longer than is entirely comfortable. 

“Either way, I brought Stiles along to put your mind at ease,” he gestures again to Stiles, who seemed happier before to eat his snack in peace without being acknowledged, and now looks put on the spot. He swallows what he has in his mouth, looks between the two of them, and appears to not know what he's supposed to say or do. “Why don't you tell him I've never asked you to sell anything for me, Stiles.” 

Stiles looks at Peter steadily, and then looks directly at Derek. “Peter's never asked me to sell anything,” he says, deadpan. 

“There you have it,” Peter smiles, pleased. Nevermind the fact that it sounds rehearsed, as though Peter was coaching him through what to say before Derek got here. “I know that following Talia's example has always been important to you. It's just as important to me. I'd never do anything to go against her wishes, out of respect if nothing else.” 

Derek sets his jaw, and knows it's such a heaping pile of steaming bullshit it's unbelievable that Peter can even make himself say it, but he nods all the same. “Of course,” he says, when he'd rather be pointing out that Talia would never pick up a fucking _hooker_ , either. 

“Talia managed to keep everything in working order for as long as she was alive,” he pulls a silver serving dish, about the size of a teacup saucer, out from underneath the seat, along with one of his credit cards and an eight ball of coke, and Derek can do absolutely nothing but sit there and watch and listen. “I would be stupid to directly go against anything she enforced, when clearly, it worked. That said, I do like to have my own signature.” 

He separates an uneven line, and hands it to Stiles. Stiles holds it there in the palm of his hand for seconds on end, blinking between it and Peter again and again. It's the youngest and most vulnerable he's ever looked, backed into a corner, and Derek clears his throat and looks at his hands. 

“Stiles here is going to be eighteen, soon, isn't that right?” He gives a small white straw to Stiles, who takes it gently between two fingers. Derek thinks about reaching over the divide between them and knocking it straight out of his hands so he doesn't have to do any of it, but that wouldn't go over well.

“About a month,” he answers, tonelessly. He leans forward, almost like he isn't sure of what he's doing, and dutifully snorts the line. When he's finished, he squeezes his eyes shut and nearly drops the dish, but Peter catches it and laughs, like he thinks it's funny he borderline coerced a teenager to fucking snort cocaine for the first time. 

Or, maybe not the first time.

“I think he'd be a great addition to the team, don't you?” Peter gives him that wolfish smile of his, and then reaches over and puts his hand on Stiles' knee. It's possessive, and disgusting, and Derek knows exactly what it means, and why Stiles is here, and what Peter plans to do with him as soon as Derek leaves the car. 

Before he can think himself out of it, Derek is leaning forwards, meeting Stiles' eyes. “You don't have to do this.” 

Stiles blinks at him like he's never heard anything like that before, but that might just be the daze from the drugs he just did, fuzzing his judgment and decision making to the point where he couldn't make a responsible choice if it smacked him over the head. He looks at Peter, nervously, but Peter doesn't say anything. Peter just tries to catch Derek's eyes, but Derek keeps himself looking only at Stiles.

“Seriously,” he goes on, keeping his voice level when he wants to be yelling. “You can come out, get into my car, and we can go.” 

More blinking from the other end of the car. Stiles looks to Peter, again, and then looks back to Derek. He shifts, just slightly, and it's all the indication that Derek needs that he doesn't want to do this. At all. He wants to go home. Or, really, anywhere but here. 

He opens his mouth to say something, but Peter cuts him off. 

“You're right,” Peter agrees, nodding his head amiably. “He doesn't _have_ to, if he doesn't want to.” 

Derek is about to gesture for Stiles to come on with him, while Peter is being uncharacteristically civil and lenient – but, Peter takes out his wallet, and pulls three crisp and brand new hundred dollar bills out, laying them on the minibar right out of Stiles' reach. Stiles licks his lips, scratches at his cheek, fidgets his fingers. His fingers are shaking. 

What he's thinking, Derek can't fathom. Maybe how much food he could buy, or clothes, or a blanket, or a night in a hotel with real soap and shampoo and television to watch, room service. To Stiles, all of that must seem like an unreachable luxury, but it's now sitting there, in his reach, Peter the only thing standing in his way. 

He gives Peter this look, then. Derek recognizes it. It's the exact same look that he gave to Derek that night when he had Stiles pinned up against the wall. He was cornered that night, half-sure that he was about to get his brains blown out all over the brick walls, so to see that same expression on is face _now_ , here...

Stiles is afraid of Peter. Moreover, he's petrified of him. Not without good reason, and not without any experience to back him up. But just like all the others like him, when it comes to money, and when it comes to how desperate he is for it, it doesn't matter how scared he gets. 

He runs his forearm underneath his nose, sniffles loudly, and says, “I'm fine.” 

He's fine. Derek closes his eyes, rubs his forehead, and tries to block out the sound of Peter laughing. 

“Money always talks with these kids,” he says, and Derek nearly dry heaves all over the leather. “You can go.” 

Boyd, who must've been listening to this entire thing silently in the front, opens up his door – and Derek knows he's coming around to open Derek's for him to let him out, take him away from this entire fucking nightmare vision he feels like he's living in. Leave Stiles alone with a man twenty years older than he is, to do god knows what with him. Probably, Peter will have him doing lines and drinking until he's pliant and warm, and then -

The door opens for Derek, and he has this moment, where he thinks he could take out his wallet and offer Stiles _five hundred_ to get out of this fucking car with him and never look back. There's power in his hands that Stiles doesn't have to do something about this, to stop it. 

But he's a coward. He doesn't know what Peter would do when faced with a direct disobedience like that, and he's afraid. 

He climbs out of the car, leaving Stiles by himself in the den of the beast, letting Boyd slam it shut behind him. Neither of them can see inside through the blacked out windows, and Derek can't decide if he prefers it that way or not. 

There's quiet between them as they both just stand there for a moment, Derek with his hands shoved into his pockets, Boyd staring at the profile of Derek's face like he's waiting for something to happen. 

“If I could do anything, I would,” Derek says. Mostly to himself as a comfort no one else will give him, because it isn't true. He knows it, but he's – there might not actually be words for what he is, anymore. 

Boyd ducks his head in a nod, and doesn't call Derek out on it. It's as good an indication of solidarity as Derek is likely to get, tonight.

+

Derek sits parked in his car outside of Scott's bar the next night, chainsmoking. He's there when Scott first arrives on his bike, a backpack on and a backwards baseball cap, and has half a mind to leap out and corner the kid then and there. However, logic tells him that Stiles probably hasn't seen or spoken to him since before whatever happened last night, so he stays put and lights another cigarette.

Hours go by. Derek starts jiggling his leg at ten o'clock, looking up and down the street for any sign of Stiles, coming up with only people who vaguely look like him, brown hair, tall, gangly. But no one that's actually him. He supposes he could call Peter and ask him directly if Stiles got dropped off someplace and is _safe_ , but he knows better than to seek a direct answer from his uncle, even less so concerning this particular subject, so he just waits. 

By eleven, he hasn't even got any cigarettes left, and his eyelids are drooping. Scott has come out once or twice to dump a trashbag out in the alley, and that's about as interesting as it gets. People stream in and out, some of them Derek recognizes, most of them he doesn't. After all, the Pacers crowd tends to be Pacers loyal, and Derek doesn't know anybody else. Except Scott. And, Stiles. 

It's not until a little after midnight, when the streets are cleared aside from the occasional drunk college kid yelling about something or other, that Stiles makes an appearance. He comes flopping down the sidewalk, looking like a certifiable mess in a ratty old gray shirt and even worse for wear jeans, those same terrible shoes on his feet, all of it together begging the question of how he ever gets any business as a _hooker_. He runs his hands through his hair, looks around nervously like he half suspects someone will leap out of the shadows, and dives through the backdoor of the bar. 

Derek lets the relief that Peter didn't chop him up and kill him sink over him for a minute, laying his forehead on the steering wheel and breathing through his nose. He barely got a wink of sleep last night, thinking of all the things Peter could do alone with him in a part of town where, literally, no one would hear a person scream – but Stiles is in one piece, and walking fine, so it must have just been...exactly what Stiles does.

That's not any better. Derek sits up and throws his door open, slamming it shut behind him, and crossing the street. 

The bar isn't crowded, just a handful of people milling in booths eating french fries and drinking beer, casual conversation over the music, so Derek spots Stiles and Scott talking at the bar instantaneously. He walks over, grabs Stiles by the upperarm, and tugs him off towards the back of the door. 

“Hey!” He yells, stumbling as Derek manhandles him. Scott is at their heels, chasing them down until they're all three of them wedged into the backroom, standing next to a bucket that smells of puke and boxes of unopened liquor bottles. “Hey, what the _fuck_ is your -”

Derek cuts him off by grabbing his chin, turning his face to one side, then the other. No bruises. There's a hickey or two lined up on his neck, and that, Derek can't even think about, so he doesn't. He just lifts his eyes and meets Stiles' – but Stiles looks away, cheeks reddening. “Did he hurt you?” 

Stiles' chin wobbles, but then he hacks out a laugh, forced if Derek has ever heard it, and rolls his eyes. “He's no worse than anyone else is.” 

Derek doesn't know how to respond to that, so he more or less doesn't. 

“Who?” Scott prompts, looking between them like he's out of the loop. 

“Some guy,” Stiles answers. He gives Derek a meaningful look, that says _don't tell Scott I fuck Peter Hale for money_ , but Derek looks right at Scott and says, “my uncle.” 

Scott's eyes bulge out of his head, and for a fraction of a second, Derek really thinks he might punch Stiles in the face. Instead, he balls his hands into fists at his sides, sets his jaw, and says absolutely nothing. It's been a year that he's been dealing with Stiles as he is now, so he must have learned that there's nothing he can do to stop Stiles from doing what he does. 

“What would ever _fucking_ possess you,” Derek starts – when Stiles doesn't look at him, Derek grabs his chin and makes him meet his eyes, “to get into Peter Hale's car? What on earth -” 

“The price is right,” Stiles laughs, that same humorless thing. “You think other people are paying me _three hundred dollars_ to lay there like a rag doll -”

Derek holds his hand up. “I don't need the fucking play by play.” 

“I make fifty dollars a person on a _good_ night,” he snaps, getting into Derek's personal space. Scott stands back, letting them duke it out between themselves. “Peter tips. What can I say?” 

“So it's about the money,” Derek nearly yells, and then Scott is shushing him, gesturing to the outside, where a dozen or so people are sitting who could overhear any of this. “You let him drug you and rape you -”

“It's not _rape_ -”

“Because of the _money_?” 

“Yes!” 

Incensed, Derek takes his wallet out, fists it open, and pulls out what has to be something like over seven hundred dollars in fifty's and hundreds, holding it out for Stiles to take. “Here. You take this, and you stay the fuck away from him from here on out.” 

Stiles eyeballs the wad, looking like he's never seen so much money in one place in his life, and then, stubbornly, puts his chin in the air like it doesn't phase him at all. “I don't want your fucking _charity money_.” 

Derek curls his fingers around the money, balling it up. “But if I fucked you myself and threw this at you afterward, it wouldn't be charity, then, would it?” 

He's not surprised that he said it – he's said worse things to much nicer people than Stiles, believe that – but he is surprised when Stiles blinks at him in surprise, mouth curving downwards into a frown even as his lips remain parted in shock. There's a second of dead silence, and then Stiles is crying, out of nowhere. 

It's not full on sobbing, or weeping, or any of it. A couple of tears spill out of his eyes, that he swipes at like he's ashamed of them, looking away like he hopes Derek doesn't see any of this. Scott stands back, hand over his mouth, watching, and he probably doesn't know where to even begin dealing with this situation, or handling it. He probably _can't_ handle it. He's as lost in all of this as Stiles is. 

“This is what I do,” Stiles says, voice a little shaky, but he powers through it. “I do this. I'm not – I'm not helpless, I know what I'm doing.” 

Derek shakes his head. “When it comes to Peter, you don't.” He wants to ask if he can even remember anything from last night, or if it's just a blur of moments, fuzzed out by the alcohol and the drugs, if he remembers where he went after it was over, if Peter dropped him off anywhere or just shucked him out of the car like trash. Derek already knows the answers to most of that, so he just thrusts the money in Stiles' direction again, refusing to take no for an answer. “Take this money. Stay away from him. This is a transaction just like any other you've ever done.” 

Stiles swipes at his eyes again. Refusal to do this, at this point, is just a stubborn, shitty attitude that Stiles has. It's why he ran away from foster care, and Scott's house, and wound up on the streets to begin with – he's convinced everyone's help is something he doesn't need, that he can make it on his own, even as right before everyone's eyes he's failing. He's starving, and bruised, and alone. Still, he persists. 

This time, he reaches out and takes the money. 

Derek watches as he counts it, fingers hovering over every hundred he sees. “All I have to do is not see him?” Stiles clarifies in a quiet voice, eyes downcast. 

“If you ever see him, turn around and walk the other way.” 

Furrowing his brow, Stiles shakes his head. “He's just like anyone else,” he insists, though it doesn't sound like he means it, not one bit. Peter is worse. He's much worse, whatever it is he does. 

Which doesn't say much about his character. What Stiles doesn't understand is that Peter has his eyes on Stiles for more than just being a whore; apparently, Peter wants to get Stiles inside the Hale operation as soon as he turns eighteen and the asinine rules no longer apply to him. What Peter sees in Stiles, Derek honestly never wants to find out. It just seems like a game to Peter, and Stiles is something for him to play around with until he gets bored. 

What Derek wants to do is keep Stiles as far away from any of that as he can. Peter would kill him without a second's hesitation, given the opportunity, just for putting a toe out of line. And Stiles – he would put a lot of toes out of line. 

And he would die, if he went with his uncle. Derek knows that for certain. One way or another, by Peter's hand or another, he would die. Derek's already mentally put himself in charge of Stiles' wellbeing, as much as a stubborn seventeen year old will let him be, and so he just can't let it happen. 

He pulls his business card out of his pocket, a simple black thing with white lettering and his cell phone number, and hands that to Stiles as well. “You call me if you're in trouble,” he says, and Stiles owl-blinks at it as he holds it reverently in the palm of his hand. He must be thinking about how few people in the city or beyond it have ever personally received Derek Hale's phone number – Derek only has six or seven people in his contacts. “I mean it, Stiles. Anything.”

+

Derek highly suspected that Stiles would rip the card up and light it on fire. Or piss on it, or something. He seems petty enough for something like that, definitely, but he figured if he encountered Stiles again he'd just ask after it and hand him another if he admitted to defacing it.

So, color him surprised when his phone rings at three o'clock in the morning from a number that he doesn't recognize – it's got a Beacon Hills area code, so he sits up in bed, turns on his bedside lamp, and answers it. 

“Okay so,” it's Stiles' voice, and he sounds a little manic. “Here's the thing – you said to call in the event of an emergency, and this isn't strictly an emergency, but – okay, maybe it is?” 

Derek tries to wake up, figuring he needs to be fully alert for this conversation. “Where are you?” 

There's a pause, a sharp intake of breath. Then, “the police station.” 

Oh, for fuck's sake. “Stiles – you called _me_ from the fucking police station? Me? _Me_?” 

“Okay,” Stiles huffs, and it sounds like he's shifting a little bit. “It's not like I yelled at top volume to the entire precinct that I'm calling Derek Hale to come and get me.” 

“Don't -” he slaps a hand over his face. “Don't _say my name_. These calls are monitored and recorded, Jesus Christ, Stiles.” 

Stiles sounds like he's laughing, which just pisses Derek off all the more. “Whoops. Can you come get me? They're trying to lock me up in the shelter again, and I just want to go home.” 

“Home?” Derek repeats. Last he checked, Stiles didn't have one. Probably, he's referring to some little enclave he's found somewhere, with a pile of clothes in a corner and an old ratty blanket, empty food wrappers everywhere. Derek, frankly, would prefer Stiles in the shelter. “What did you get taken in for?” 

“Existing,” he replies, sounding annoyed about it. “Sometimes they just scoop me up if they spot me. Everyone is such a good Samaritan. I wish they'd fuck right off. Are you coming?” 

Derek throws his blankets off and bends down to pull his shoes on his feet, nodding his head even though Stiles can't see it. “Sure, I'll come pick you up.” 

“Okay.” There's a pause, but he doesn't hang up right away. “Um, thanks. Or whatever.” 

When he pushes open the doors into the foyer of the police station, Stiles is sitting handcuffed to a bench right next to the payphone – it's probably where he's been since he hung up twenty minutes ago. He shoots up when he spots Derek, waves grandly, and then starts pointedly tugging on the handcuffs while making eye contact with a tired looking deputy manning the front desk. The deputy sighs, rolls his eyes, and slowly approaches Stiles with the key like he has all the time in the world. 

“Aren't handcuffs for actual criminals?” Derek asks as soon as he's within hearing distance. Stiles looks up at him with a smirk, raising his eyebrows to the police officer like _yeah, how about that_? 

As they click open, he and the officer make eye contact. Derek reads his nametag as a kneejerk, and recognizes the name _Parrish_ from somewhere, though he can't remember where. Probably just from being stopped by him once or twice before. “People like you, yes.” 

Derek laughs, beckoning Stiles over with a sweep of his arm. He's standing there in sweatpants and an old white t-shirt, sneakers haphazardly thrown onto his feet, but Parrish looks at him as though he's about to whip out a gun at any second to take out everyone in the building. Stiles stands and walks over to stand at his side, haughty about it, like he's getting off scotfree. 

Then, he looks in between the two of them, how close they're standing together, and makes a face like someone just went ahead and shot a kitten. “I should arrest you where you fucking stand for even having the balls to walk in here.” 

Again, Derek laughs. It's his automatic setting when dealing with the police. “Sure,” he holds his arms out imperiously, smiling through the whole thing. “You've got nothing on me.” 

The point is obvious – a low grade criminal Derek might have been as a teenager, but he has nothing on his name except, well, his _name_. The deputy just narrows his eyes harder, because he knows this information as well as anyone else does. They've been trying to get Derek for _something_ , as the lesser of the two evils between himself and Peter, but Derek's smart. “Can't say the same for your uncle.” 

“Find him,” Derek challenges. 

Parrish laughs sarcastically, taking a step away. “You take care of yourself, Stiles.” 

“Please suck my dick,” Stiles says back, turning on his heel to walk out the door. “Got a twenty on you?” 

The officer rubs his forehead like that's just about the worst thing Stiles could've possibly said, and then gives Derek an intensely disgusted look. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to cuss out that this guy strongly suspects that Derek is going to take Stiles off and pay him for his services, but Derek could give a fuck what he thinks. If he wanted to, he could follow Derek and he'd discover nothing except for wherever Stiles is holing himself up these days and the address of Derek's penthouse. 

“You made a mistake linking yourself with that kid,” he juts his chin in the direction of where Stiles is paused at the door, waiting for Derek to hurry up and come along so they can leave. “People around here don't take that kindly to people messing with him.” 

Derek raises his eyebrows, chancing a glance in Stiles' direction to find him oddly withdrawn. The cops have always been sympathetic toward the plight of the homeless youth, and Stiles certainly isn't the only kid they pick up off the streets under the guise of interrogation just to haul them off to a shelter – but the way Parrish says it makes it sound very personal, where Stiles is concerned. 

“Ugh,” Stiles slaps his forehead against the glass of the door. “Can we skip the fucking Good Cop speech? We get it, you love Captain America.” 

“Have a good night,” he spits, finally turning around to go back to his desk. 

In the car, Stiles rolls his window down and leans back in his seat, putting his legs up the same way he did last time. “I really hate the cops,” he says, giving Derek a broad grin. It's a stark contrast to his attitude the last time he saw the kid, without the crying and the attitude. “I bet you share the sentiment.” 

“Sure, on principle,” he agrees as they drive away from the fluorescent lights. 

“Right. Principle. On principle, I think they're all dicks and go out of their way to make my life harder than it has to be.” He pauses, considering that statement. “Harder than it already is. I lost four hours of money just because they have it out for me.”

“They have it out for you?” 

“They look for me specifically,” he explains, thumping his head back on the headrest. “If they ever find me, they make up something about having to ask me questions and take me in just to shove me into a shelter. It's so _annoying_ ,” he draws the last word out nice and long, like a whine. 

Derek thinks about what Parrish had said, about how _people around here_ don't like anybody screwing with Stiles. He glances sidelong at him, before looking back to the road. “They've taken a special interest in you?” 

Oddly, Stiles doesn't have a quip about that. He just leans back farther into his seat, like he's trying to evaporate into the leather, sink into it, become one with it, just to get away from that question. Then, the golden arches for a McDonald's fit themselves into the rectangle of the windshield and Stiles shoots up, pointing at it. “Can we stop? I'm so hungry I'd eat a fucking toad.” 

Derek doesn't hesitate before turning into the drive-thru, sliding right up to the menu so both of their faces are illumined by the garish lights. Stiles leans forward, scanning his eyes over all the choices quickly. In this lighting, he looks even more sickly and pale than he usually does – eyes all sunken and tired, collarbones pronounced, frown deep. 

He orders a big mac and a large sprite, rubbing his hands together as they drive forward. “I hardly ever get McDonald's,” he chatters while they wait behind another car, running his hand through his hair. “It's a long way to walk to the nearest one from my spots. Plus, you know they started charging on the buses? Who has an extra dollar just to, like, go somewhere?” He gives Derek a look, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I suppose you do.” 

“I've got extra dollars, yes.” 

Stiles nods his head. Once the girl slides open the window, Stiles pulls a crumpled handful of bills out of his pocket and moves to hand them over Derek to her waiting hand, but Derek pushes him away and grabs a twenty from the ashtray in between them. “I've got it,” he says.

“You've already got it anyway,” Stiles gestures to the money in his hand. Derek wonders what else Stiles has spent that money on – he hopes just food and a hotel, but anyone's guess is as good as his. 

Stiles demands that they park so he can eat, because he can't eat and be in a moving vehicle since he'll puke, so Derek parks underneath a streetlight and listens to the crinkle of food wrappers as Stiles gorges himself. He eats that hamburger like he hasn't eaten in a year, slurps his Sprite with little to no decorum, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. 

“You weren't hungry?” He asks, mouth full. 

“I ate a real dinner at a normal time of night,” Derek tells him. “At a table and everything.” 

He makes a noise of interest, swallows his food. “Do you still live at the Hale house?” 

The Hale House is a place out in the woods where Derek grew up – it's an old structure, from well before Derek or even Talia's time, where the cops genuinely believe ninety-nine percent of dealings go down in the cover of night. As many times as they've been wrong, they still run raids on the place. It's laughable, at best. “No one lives there,” he says, shaking his head. “It's just where we stick pawns for the cops to find and take in, only to find out they don't know anything.” 

“Huh,” Stiles intones, licking a bit of secret sauce off of his lips. “That is weirdly clever.” 

“You don't get to this point by being stupid.” 

“Explain Peter, then.” 

Derek laughs, surprised more than anything else, and gives Stiles an incredulous look. “You figured that out about him, huh?” 

“He has struck me on occasion to be,” he taps his chin in mock thought, “...a fucking joke of a human being. But, whatever, he's rich.” 

Stiles finishes his food and dutifully balls all the wrappers up into the bottom of the bag, scooping up the few fries floating around down there and shoving them into his mouth all at once. Then, he leans back in his seat, sips his drink, and stares at the side of Derek's face while he types a text out to Lydia about whether or not she's watching this, right now. She probably is – or, at least, one of her little underlings is. 

“So,” Stiles starts, drawing the word out. He shifts in his seat, lifts one leg up, and puts his drink down. “Are you ever going to ask me?” 

Derek puts his phone down in his lap, giving Stiles his full attention. “Ask you what?” 

Stiles gestures to himself, like it's so obvious, but Derek just blinks at him and waits for further explanation. When the silence goes on, Stiles huffs out a breath and scratches at his cheek. “Do you want to fuck me?” 

Derek feels like punching himself directly in the face for not having seen this coming sooner. Of course Stiles would think that he's ultimately is trying to get into his pants – of course. It's why anyone is ever remotely nice to him, after all. Still, he rears his neck back in shock and makes a surprised noise. “No, Jesus _Christ_.” 

Stiles narrows his eyes and reaches for his drink again. “Then, what? You want me to -”

“ _No_.” 

“Why not? I'm not ugly,” he says this so nonchalant, like there could possibly be no other reason someone wouldn't want to pay him for sex. He's good looking enough, so why the hell not? 

“You are seventeen years old,” he reminds Stiles, voice low, and Stiles laughs. He really, really laughs, long and loud – it must be the first time anyone even cared that he was younger than the legal age of consent, maybe even the first time anyone's ever asked how old he was. 

“Um? You're a crime boss. You piss on the law.” 

Derek gives him a dark look, before glaring out the window at the lights of the restaurant in front of them. “I'm the son of a crime boss.” 

“You come from a long line of people who piss on the law,” he draws his hand out in the air in a line, as though he's miming Derek's family lineage right there in front of them, “but you won't fuck me because of my age.” 

“Do you need money again?” Derek asks, moving to pull his wallet out. “If that's what this is about -”

“If you try to hand me any money without asking me for something first I'm going to shove it down your throat and choke you with it.” 

Derek pauses. It's a very vivid and specific threat. “I'm not going to pay you for sex, Stiles. I'm just not going to do that. If you need money -”

“I'm fine.” That's what he said when he was strung out in Peter Hale's car, fingers shaking, eyes glazed, so Stiles' _fine_ means next to nothing, as far as Derek is concerned. 

“I meant what I said,” Derek goes on, ignoring Stiles. “If you need someone, you can call me, and I'll come. That's the extent of our relationship. Period.” 

Stiles swallows, and then he stares down at his lap, where his hands are resting. It takes him a second, but he finally manages to clear his throat, and ask, in a small voice, “why?” Like it doesn't even make any sense to him at all why someone, let alone someone like Derek, would be willing to lend a hand to him like that, with no ulterior motive. All Stiles knows is ulterior motives.

Truthfully, Derek has no answer to that. As long as he's spent trying to figure it out himself, he hasn't been able to. There are hundreds of kids just like him, some of them even worse for wear, and Derek sees them every day. Has been seeing them, for years. 

Stiles is different. He doesn't know why. “Because I give a shit,” is what he says, vague as ever. 

Stiles is quiet for a long time. He plays with the straw in his drink so it makes that unbearable screeching noise of plastic against plastic, but Derek doesn't make a comment on it or ask him to stop. After a minute or two, Stiles finally just sighs and asks, in a tired voice, “can you take me home?” 

“Where are you staying?” Derek turns his key in the ignition and expects Stiles to say something about a spot under the bridge, or a back alley somewhere – he expects another argument about going to the shelter. Instead, Stiles rattles off the name of a motel not that far from Derek's place, as a matter of fact, and Derek breathes a sigh of relief and drives him.


	3. Chapter 3

“Are you gonna drink any of this?” Erica leans over the platter of shots, pointing to each individual one as though she's seriously thinking about taking them all down in one go. Derek looks at them, then down at the barely touched drink in his own hand, and shakes his head no. 

“Go on ahead,” he says, putting his drink down on the table in between them and leaning back in his seat. Erica gives him a strange look, but doesn't make a comment as she takes a shot, and then a second. 

They're sitting back in the VIP section of Pacers, in the exact same couch they've always commandeered. Derek has spent so many hours of his life in this seat, looking at the same ugly tapestries and listening to the same four basslines over and over again – it never lost its appeal, for a while, even just as a place to get utterly and completely smashed. His claim to fame is this room, with these people. While Talia and his uncle and everyone else went out and made names for themselves breaking bad, Derek's empire was here. It's like a second home to him. 

Now, though, Derek just sits and wrings his hands in his lap, observing as everyone else gets plastered and starts making fools out of themselves. Lydia is there, sipping at a pink thing and checking her phone every ten seconds, and Erica of course, because where else would she be, and Peter is off to the side eating appetizers and making business conversation with someone Derek's never seen before. 

Derek still can't rightly look at Peter after knowing what he's done to Stiles. Worst of all is that it isn't like he can bring it up, punch him in the face for it like he's just fucking _itching_ to do. 

Derek can only imagine what would happen if he tried to do that. Peter would throw his back out laughing, he's pretty sure, if Derek tried to come to the defense of some useless street rat that Peter's taken a liking to. He'd never understand how coercing a teenager to drink and snort coke and then have sex with him is something _wrong_ – especially considering he paid Stiles after the fact. To him, that's a transaction, nothing more, nothing less. Stiles has his place in the streets, and Peter's just doing his part. 

It makes Derek sick to his stomach, watching Peter sit there in his expensive clothes and talk and laugh and drink – while who the fuck knows where Stiles is right about now. 

Lydia sidles up next to him, putting her phone down briefly to look him in the eye. “You and your friend aren't very interesting,” she tells him over the sound of the bass, before sneaking a sip of her drink. 

Derek smiles in spite of himself, down into his hands. “What does interest you?” 

“Murder, mostly,” she smiles, but she's probably not kidding. Her job is following people around, after all – and it only gets interesting when – well. When it gets _interesting_. Half her job is trailing Derek in specific, though, in case anyone tried to shoot him or drag him into police custody. She must have been frantic when she followed Derek to the police station, wondering what the hell he thought he was doing waltzing in there like some kind of a fucking idiot. When he came back out with Stiles she probably just deleted the pictures and pretended like it never happened.

It's a secret she has to keep for him, though they won't ever bring it up long enough for Derek to thank her. “I think I've seen him around other places, you know.” 

Derek looks at her, interested. “Like where?” 

“Street corners,” she shrugs. “He has a very memorable face.” 

“Is that a come on?”

“A come on to a seventeen year old?” She rolls her eyes and gives him a look. “Please. I just mean he sticks out from the rest of his peers, you know.” 

That, Derek thinks might be the truth. After all, even though Derek has run into literally dozens upon dozens of Stiles' kind over the years, he's never taken a particular interest in any of them aside from him. There must be something about him that has that effect on people, and it's not just the _wounded and pathetic_ thing. 

“Mostly, he just deals and turns tricks,” she jabs her straw around in her ice. “If you were ever wondering what kind of trouble he gets into. He never seems to buy or get strung out. You see what I mean? Not very interesting.” 

Derek can't deny that there's something nice about being able to glean secondhand information about what Stiles does with his days, seeing as how trying to get this information out of him is often times like pulling teeth. It's all as he expected down to the minute details, but it's nice to know. 

“What I do think is interesting is how much time you spend with him.” 

“I hardly spend any time at all with him.” If one were to lay out everything that Derek has done since encountering Stiles the first time, this would be true. He's only had a few lengthy conversations with him; honestly, Derek's days are mostly spent in his penthouse or in a bar somewhere. Stiles hasn't been very much a part of any of that. 

“More time than you tend to spend with any other person,” she innocently sucks on her straw, giving Derek a meaningful look. “It's interesting. He's a human disaster, and yet...”

“I'm a human disaster,” Derek counters in a low voice, almost hoping that Lydia won't be able to hear it over the sound of the music. She does though, naturally. 

“A match made in heaven.”

“He's seventeen,” Derek reminds her. 

Lydia taps her wrist. “Not for much longer.” 

“I'm not going to _count down the days_ until a seventeen year old turns eighteen like some kind of gross fucking pervert, Lydia.” Like Peter. 

She shrugs. “Maybe that's a good thing. It's not wise to get attached to anyone in this business. You know that.”

Yes, Derek does know that. Getting attached to people is never a good thing. Anything can be used against you, and ultimately will, if the information winds up in the wrong hands. 

There's a lengthy pause, wherein Lydia scans the room as though taking stock of everyone else here. Erica is blasted, holding an empty shot glass and laughing hysterically at something some random kid just said to her, and Laura is engrossed in a plate of mozzarella sticks, and Peter is likewise busy. 

Lydia sets her green eyes back on Derek, a frown on her face. She leans closer, whispering in his ear. “You know, Peter seems to be under the impression that your friend is his to recruit.” 

It's her job to know, so she does, but Derek is annoyed. Annoyed that Peter has spent more time than just with Derek alone in a parked limousine considering Stiles as a part of any of this bullshit, to the point where Lydia has picked up on it. What other dealings has Peter ever had with Stiles? Just _how many_ times has he picked Stiles up off a street corner? 

Lydia would know. So he asks. When he pulls his face away from her ear, she's looking down at her drink and trying to look nonchalant. She looks up, briefly meets Derek's eyes, and then mouths a number. 

_Fifteen_. 

In the grand scheme of how many other people that Stiles has likely been in the services of, it's a drop in the ocean. If Stiles has been at this for two years, it's almost _nothing_. 

But fifteen times being alone with Peter Hale is fifteen times too many – Derek can only fathom the kinds of conversations they've had, what things Peter has said to him, what type of things Peter has made him _do_. 

Derek had been convinced that it was just once or twice. Clearly, he's been deluding himself. 

“Mostly it's just the sex,” she says out loud, shrugging like it's no big deal. “Although he's spent a great deal of time trying to convince Stiles his life would be upgraded outrageously if he came along with us. Stiles seems smart, but he's also a desperate teenager living off of blood money, bed to bed.” 

Desperation is what people like Peter fucking feed on. 

Derek stands up from the couch, announces that he has to get some air, and leaves Lydia sitting there with a frown, still playing with her straw. 

Outside in the night air, it's easier to think. Away from the music and the liquor and the sweet smelling smoke, Derek can actually catch a breath and feel somewhat human again. In there, it's all the same mindset. Everyone just wants to get messed up and find someone to take home with them, and Derek used to love doing exactly that – it's a numbing process, really. An escape from reality. 

The streets, though. The sidewalks and the lights and the stars. All that is the reality. Sometimes it's ugly, Derek knows, but other times, it's freeing. 

He stuffs his hands in his pockets and wanders off down the familiar roads. This entire town is mapped out in his head down to the alleyways. He knows all the nooks and crannies like the back of his hand, so it's impossible for him to really and truly get lost – but he doesn't think about where he's going. He just keeps walking. 

If Peter has his eyes on Stiles to be some pawn or puppet that he can screw around with, then there might be next to nothing that Derek could do to really stop it. Other than shooting Peter in the head. But that wouldn't go over well. Derek has had a passing thought of murdering Peter like everyone else has, but some people are still loyal enough to him, deranged psycho he might be, that they'd shoot Derek right back. 

Then, there's also the option of somehow managing to get Stiles off the streets and into an actual home, an actual job, back to school, or even just away. If Scott couldn't do it, then he doubts he would be able to, but maybe it's all worth a shot. 

Honestly, Derek doesn't know what he's going to do. Stiles has gone and messed his life up, and he might just have to deal with those consequences. It isn't fair, though, to make Derek deal with them as well. 

He rounds a corner and isn't surprised at all when he sees the subject of his thoughts standing on the opposite side of the street, slapping a deck of cards against his hand and talking to someone else. It's a bigger guy, a little older than him, and they seem to be pretty seriously engaged. It doesn't necessarily look like the kind of conversation two people have before going down an alley somewhere, but then again, you never know. 

If Derek walked over there and broke it up and told the guy to go fuck himself, Stiles would be livid and yell at him about _chasing the money away_ , and then that would be a whole nother fucking fight that Derek isn't in the mood for. Still, he has to admit that he doesn't much relish the thought of standing idly by while Stiles does something like that, but then, who is he to judge? He does what he does. 

He keeps going with the intent to move along without bothering him at all – but he can't help his eyes from wandering over to examine the two of them every now and again as he walks. He looks, and looks, watching as Stiles says something with a frown and the other guy says something back, and then he realizes - 

That's a Raeken that Stiles is talking to. Without a doubt. It's not Theo or Matt, thank fucking God, but it's certainly one of them. They all have a habit of looking alike, those people, cropped hair and blue eyes and a shrewd, calculating gaze. Not to mention the fact that he's wearing an unmistakably familiar leather band around his wrist, on the hand that he's currently using to reach out and pat Stiles on the shoulder with. 

Derek has stopped in his tracks, watching this like a hawk. The Raeken nods, once, and then starts stalking down the sidewalk past Stiles, who turns his head and frowns at his retreating back. The two of them watch the man disappear around a corner, and then Stiles turns and sees Derek standing there. 

He smiles, grins more like, and waves enthusiastically for him to cross the street. It must not have been that upsetting a conversation, then, if he can go from vague confusion to immediate joy within the span of a millisecond. 

“Hello,” Stiles greets him once Derek is at the curb, still slapping that deck against his palm. “Care for a jump?” 

“Is it more of my own?” 

“It's street level,” he shrugs, pulling out a handful of baggies of what looks like gummies that must be covered in a hallucinogen of some kind, before stuffing them back into his jean pocket. “Interested?” 

“Absolutely not.” 

“Aw, nuts.” 

Derek turns down the street where the stranger had vanished, and then looks back to Stiles. “You know that guy?” 

“Who?” He looks around, eyes scanning the street. They're the only ones out here, aside from a few people coming and going from a restaurant a half a block away. 

“That guy,” he gestures with a thumb towards the corner, and Stiles follows it. He blinks, and then realization dawns over his face.

“The random? No,” he shakes his head. “Never seen him before in my life. Though he acted like he knew me, which was – wow. I'm making a name for myself.” 

It's incredible, almost, that Stiles has made it this far without getting himself fucking shot and killed. “In this business, that's not a good thing.” 

“Okay, Derek Hale.” 

“You seriously didn't know him?” He scrutinizes Stiles' face for any trace of a lie. Weird, fucked-up pseudo-friends they might be, but Derek isn't so naive to think that Stiles just flat out wouldn't lie to him. 

“Nope.” His lips pop on the _p_ , and there's not a hint of mistruth about him. “Why, do you?” 

Derek nods his head, and then shakes it. “Yes and no, I guess. That was – well. That was one of Theo Raeken's people.” 

With a whistle, Stiles widens his eyes. “That explains that.” 

“Explains what?” 

He shifts his feet a little bit, and then scratches at his eyebrow with the corner of one of his cards. “He asked me if I was slinging Hale, and I said, nope. He said, I've heard you do sling Hale, and I said, sometimes, when I get my hands on it. It sells well. And he said -”

“I don't need the transcript,” Derek huffs, and Stiles shrugs his shoulders like _well, sorry_. 

“He just seemed very concerned about how I was selling Hale stuff, or that I do sometimes,” he squints his eyes, almost smiling to himself. “Now that I know who he was, it makes a lot more sense.” 

The Hales and the Raekens have a very, very long history. None of it, for the record, is good. Backstabbing, lies, stealing, murder, and on and on and on. For lack of a better comparison, it's like some Capulets and the Montagues bullshit. Even though neither of the groups have deigned to kill a member of the other for something like twelve or so years now, the animosity remains, and the struggle between the two of them on the streets sometimes reaches climactic highs. Raekens don't want any stupid kids selling Hale shit on their half of the city, as designated by a treaty written by Talia, and vice versa. 

“Do you think he's gonna whack me?” 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. “No one is going to whack you. Just – watch your step.” 

“That's not, like, intimidating or anything.” 

“I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just being honest,” he gestures to the street around them, “if you sell in the wrong place, the wrong stuff, you might get in trouble.” 

Raekens generally get to be pretty trigger happy; if they really caught a kid throwing Hale product all over their beloved sidewalks, there's not a doubt in Derek's mind they'd shoot without thinking twice about it. Especially a no-name hooker like Stiles. 

“He didn't threaten me. Or...” he thinks for a moment, perhaps analyzing this conversation from the new perspective on it that he's been given. “Well, maybe. I don't know, I don't care. I'll just not come to this street again, how about.” 

He hops down off the curb and begins to make his way down to another block, heedless of whether or not Derek is following him. Of course, Derek is, a half a step behind until he manages to catch up. “That's a good idea,” he says. Avoidance of Raekens is more or less what he bases his entire life on, and Stiles should fucking do the same. Everyone should, in his opinion. But then, he's biased. 

“Sure, sure,” Stiles nods, walking briskly down the sidewalk rubbing at his eyes like he's tired. “What are you doing out here, anyway? Since this is Raeken zone.”

“I didn't notice that it was,” he says, honestly, finally taking in his surroundings. A few blocks down from here, the stupid little club that Theo runs is probably booming and hustling, just like Pacers is. “I was out for a walk.” 

“Hmm,” Stiles intones. Then, he gives Derek a shit-eating grin. “Looking for me?” 

“Actually, no.” 

“You found me either way.” 

Derek laughs, because Stiles is a dope all things said and done, and then they walk in silence together for a while. Derek hasn't the slightest idea where Stiles is going to park himself instead, but at least he's going back around middle ground, edging on the outskirts of Hale territory. Stiles shuffles as he walks, scanning his eyes over the streets as though he's looking for some hapless kid to peddle his wares to, yawning a few times and muttering about the people in the room next to him keeping him awake all night. 

Eventually, Stiles comes to a stop outside a bakery, closed for the night, and leans back against the building. He gives Derek a genuine, but apologetic smile, and says, “not to be a dick, but having Derek Hale hovering in the vicinity of my workshop might scare people away. So.” 

“Oh.” Derek blinks. “Right.” 

“Yeah. Fuck off,” he says, though not unkindly, gesturing down the street as though directing Derek on where to go. “I'm sure we'll run into each other again one of these days.” 

It seems inevitable. 

Derek turns to walk away and find his way back to Pacers, and his car, and ultimately his bed; but he stops at the last second, looking over his shoulder at where Stiles is still standing. “You haven't seen Peter recently, have you?” 

Stiles meets his eyes. “I'm a man of my word,” he says, no smile, just factually. “I avoid him, mostly.” 

Derek nods his head. “Good.”

+

Derek lives on the far end of the Hale half of the city – verging dangerously close to the woods that separate them from the rest of civilization as they know it. It's on the direct opposite end from where Peter's ridiculous safe house is, though it's halfway between that and the commercial lending business tucked away in a building they've got set up as a cover. He's always liked to keep his personal life as far away and separate from everything that his family and colleagues do – after Talia died, he stopped considering himself a part of any of it.

Never in his entire life did Derek _want_ to do any of this, not even when he was a stupid teenager and might have thought that it was somewhat cool. But Derek never wanted to sell, and he never wanted to boss people around, and he never wanted to learn how to fire a gun. The last one, he did anyway, if only for his own fucking good. 

It didn't matter anyway, because he's so immersed into it now that there's nowhere else for him to go. His friends, his life, his money, his _things_ , all of it is traced back to the Hale name. There's nothing he can do about it except live on the edges of town and pretend he's just any other person, from time to time. 

For a while he tried to keep his address a secret (even knowing Lydia would wolf it out within the first two days of him living there, before the boxes were unpacked) just to keep up the fantasy of being his own person. Of course, everyone knows, and he occasionally looks out over his balcony to see a cop car slowing down as it passes the building, as if it's waiting to catch him. It doesn't scare him, not really, but at the same time, it puts him on edge. 

Nonetheless, it's not a surprise when Peter comes calling on him without even knocking first, but it is fucking obnoxious. He sweeps inside with a key that Lydia must have had copied for him, slams the door behind him, and smiles. 

Derek rubs his forehead and turns the television down to mute, putting his empty plate down on the coffee table and wiping his hands off on his jeans. “What is it now?” He asks, watching as Peter bridges the distance between the foyer and the sitting room all pomp and circumstance. 

“I just came for a visit,” he trails his fingers along the frame of a picture on the wall, wiping imaginary dust off with a flick. “I know how much you value your privacy, but you make it so hard to find you anywhere else, these days.” 

For a moment, Peter just stands there in front of the couch with his hands shoved into his pockets. He seems to be assessing the entirety of the apartment that his eyes can see – from the open kitchen to the large windows and the balcony beyond it. He doesn't look impressed, but then, nothing much impresses him. “You don't come to the club as much.” 

Derek nods. “It got old.”

Peter looks amused by that, lips twitching at the corners. Derek long ago stopped trying to figure out what's going on inside of his head, so he just stares back at him placidly and waits for him to hurry up and get to the point. “Let's cut right to the chase -”

“Yes, let's.”

“I'm not an idiot.” Derek could burst out laughing at that, he really fucking could, but instead, he presses his lips down into a firm line and nods his assent. “I know that there's some tension between you and I, lately, but for the life of me,” he waves his hand in the air, “I can't figure out why that could be.” 

Derek rests his hands on his knees, curling his fingers in, but he keeps his face impassive.

“You've never been a problem before,” he goes on, watching Derek's every minute movement like a hawk, “everyone else has a tendency to let me down, but I expect next to nothing from you, and usually, you meet expectations.” 

“Are you saying I'm a problem, now?” 

There's a ghost of a smile on Peter's face as he cocks his head to the side – as though he's considering that question very carefully. “Not yet.” 

It's as vague as anything else he ever says; still, the dread pools in Derek's stomach and settles there, hot and heavy. Being a _problem_ for Peter only ever ends one way, as Derek has learned time and time again, in the worst ways possible. “What could I have possibly done -”

“That's what I've been trying to figure out – only, I've been trying to figure out what I've done to earn your ire.” 

“I don't have ire -”

“It couldn't possibly be because of a street rat,” he says it so nonchalant, as though it's entirely a non-issue, nothing to even dedicate his full attention to, but Derek can see the tension in his shoulders, the intense set of his eyes even though they're not making eye contact. “That would be ridiculous.” 

Derek swallows. “Yes, it would.” 

“There are hundreds of kids out there. It'd be a waste of time to fixate on just one, especially considering the going life expectancy of a single one of them.” 

“Then why are _you_ fixated?” 

They finally meet eyes. Derek can only fathom what his own look like, angry but trying to control it, or maybe even just south of afraid, but Peter's are incalculable. He has a way of looking at people that's almost empty, like there's nothing left of humanity there inside of him. It gets that way, sometimes, in this life – but Talia never let herself get so lost in it. “I could snap his neck as easily as any other useless whore like him and think nothing of it,” he smiles, all teeth. “I'm not fixated.” 

Derek desperately tries to shake the mental imagery he has running through is head – Stiles' eyes wide and unblinking, lifeless – and digs his fingers deeper into the skin of his legs. “You said yourself you wanted him.” 

“I want a whole army of kids like him,” he says with a shrug, barely phased at the implication. “Losing him would be a waste, it's true – he has potential. But I wouldn't feel sorry if he wound up missing.” 

It's as good of a threat as any other Peter has ever doled out, casual and uninteresting, but with every intent to follow it up should the situation call for it. “Why are you telling me this?” Derek asks, gritting his teeth. “Is this you trying to _get_ to me? What do you want out of this?” 

Peter doesn't answer that. He pauses, a vindictive, cruel smile crossing his face, and then he pulls something out of his pocket. He leans forward just enough to drop whatever it is down onto the coffee table, right in Derek's eye line, and then straightens back up. 

It's one of Stiles' cards, without a doubt, judging from the state of it – old, worn down, dog eared on one of the corners with a smattering of dirt and what might be blood all over it. The king of hearts, blank faced. Derek stares at it for seconds on end, his hands balling into fists. He thinks about flipping the coffee table over, leaping up from the couch, wringing Peter's neck until he gets to watch the life go out of his eyes.

Stiles didn't _give_ that card to Peter – Peter took it. Probably right out of his pocket. 

“This whole city is mine, even the parts the Raekens have been trying to force me out of,” his voice is even as he speaks, but with an undercurrent of something dark, dangerous. “You think you could keep me away from anyone?” 

Derek's fists are shaking from the exertion he's putting into not opening the drawer two feet away, pulling his handgun out. “You didn't touch him.” It's not a question. It's the start of a threat – Peter didn't, he fucking better not have, and if he fucking did, then...

“Why not?” He adjusts the lapels of his jacket, straightening himself up as though he's about to have his picture taken. “I own him.” 

Just like he owns the rest of them. Derek, included. There's nothing he can say to refute the point, because as far as Peter is concerned, there is no argument. Peter has dominion over the kids like Stiles, every last one of them, and most of them would be clamoring to get the chance to work underneath him. They don't know any better. They're desperate. 

“If you ever, _ever_ -”

“Save the threats, will you?” Peter rolls his eyes and sighs, long and loud. “What are you going to do, Derek? Kill me over a whore?” 

Derek could say any number of things, right about now. He could say he'd kill Peter for dozens of things, dating back to when he first took over, he could say he's wanted to kill Peter since before Talia even died, he could just do it, then and there.

But that wouldn't be smart - Peter is playing a game, and Derek has to play along. 

“No,” he says definitively, leaning back into his couch cushions. Peter tracks the movement, as though he half expects Derek to pull a gun out from underneath a pillow. “I don't want to kill you, at all.” 

Peter smiles, a genuine one, this time – as genuine as it ever gets with him, at least. “Good.”

+

Derek pulls up outside of the motel where Stiles has been staying, nearly running over a shrub in the process. He's parked crookedly, he notes as he gets out, but he doesn't take the time to fix it – he just slams his door and tries to remember which door Stiles had opened up when Derek dropped him off the other night. He scans them, remembering it was on the top level, and half runs over to the stairs, taking them two a time.

When he's up on the balcony overlooking the parking lot, he doesn't know what to do. He's more than willing to bang on each and every door until Stiles opens one of them up, but there's too great a chance he'd be thrown off the property before he even got close. 

Luckily, a woman opens up her door with a cigarette in her mouth, stepping out onto the concrete in slippers, leaning over the railing as she lights up. Derek makes himself look less crazed – runs his hands through his hair, adjusts his shirt – and approaches her. 

“Hey,” he calls, and she turns to look at him, annoyed. “Have you seen a kid, seventeen, brown hair, about this tall,” he holds his hand up an inch or so shorter than himself, and she blinks. 

“The hooker?” 

Derek sighs. He could've been that direct, he guesses. “Yes, him.” 

She gives him a steady, long look, breathing a cloud of smoke in Derek's general direction. She looks him up and down, makes up her mind that he's a sleazebag probably, and then points her thumb to the door two down from her own. “He's in ten.” 

“Thanks,” he mutters, breezing past her and half slamming himself against the door with a golden 10 emblazoned on the front. 

He bangs on it, four times in a row. There's no response. He waits five seconds, tapping his foot, and then bangs again. “ _Stiles_ ,” he calls through grit teeth. “Open the fucking door.” 

The woman is watching him, probably half expecting Derek to be Stiles' pimp – she must think she's about to see a show, or she might just be about to call the police. It's what any decent person would do, but she just stands, smokes, and waits. 

Another round of bangs, this one even more frantic, because if Stiles doesn't answer then he might be fucking dead in there, or dead somewhere else, or any number of terrible possibilities that Derek can barely make himself linger on.

It's a good thing, then, Stiles' voice comes through the other side. “Keep your fuckin' pants on,” he half shouts. There's a second, Derek sagging against the door in relief, taking two even deep breaths, and then there's the metal sound of locks being clicked and moved around. “Who is it? Carl?” 

_Carl_? That is the single most stereotypical name for a man who solicits teenaged male prostitutes that Derek has ever heard. He curls his upper lip in disgust at the image of _Carl_ he gets in his head, and says, “it's Derek.” 

There's a mutter, something like _just fuckin' great_ , and then the door is swinging open, revealing Stiles and his annoyed glare. He's got a shiner, purpling around the edges of his eye, a red cheek with a gash about the size a ring would leave, and what looks like a hand print bruised into the skin of his neck. Derek pushes him forwards and away from the door, ignoring Stiles' indignant squawk, and slams the door behind them. 

“What the fuck is your -”

He grabs Stiles' chin, turns his face this way and that, analyzing every last inch of the bruises on his skin up close. The cut on his face isn't that bad – could be worse, he guesses – but the eye bruise will likely remain for a while to come, yet. 

“He did this?” Derek demands, meeting Stiles' eyes. They're bloodshot, like he's stoned, and from the smell of the room, he definitely is. Derek doesn't mind so much. 

“Well,” Stiles starts, shoving Derek's hand off and away from him, “I guess you already know what happened.” He sits down on his bed, unmade, covered in dirty clothes, and glowers at his hands. 

“I don't know the specifics.” 

“I was standing, as one does,” he points out the window to the rest of the city, “and all of the sudden, there's a guy jumping me, I'm dragged back into an alley, Peter's there, boom, pow,” he pokes at his wounds for emphasis, “that's all there is to it.” 

Derek examines him closely; he doesn't seem to be that traumatized by the whole experience. It's definitely not the first time he's gotten a beating on the streets, but Derek wonders if a person can ever get to a point where it's just _nothing_ to them, whenever it happens. Stiles sits there, blinking steadily, maybe too high to really emote his true feelings towards the situation. “Did he say anything?” 

“Oh, yeah,” he waves his hand dismissively, furrowing his brow. “The dude loves to soapbox. He went on and on about how _this is his town_ , and I better _find my place in it_ ,” he rolls his eyes. 

“That sounds about right,” Derek mutters. “Did he...” he trails off, gestures vaguely, but Stiles seems to get the hint. 

“It was just the punching and the brief choking,” he says, matter-of-fact, and Derek nods. “Though he did steal my stash. The fuck. That was an easy two hundred bucks he stole from me, and now I have to make it up. Fucking rent.” 

Derek rubs at his forehead and paces, stepping over an old pizza box and an empty bottle of liquor. Peter clearly didn't want to do anything more than _threaten_ him, for the time being, but he has a habit of following his threats up ten times as harsh if he doesn't see the results he wants to. The trouble is, Derek has no idea what it is he specifically wants from Stiles, aside from getting him the second he turns eighteen, loading him up with Hale product, and shipping him off to do the dirty work. 

It's anyone's guess as to why he felt the need to beat and steal from him, but like Derek has said before. Peter is a sadist. Probably, he likes to punch defenseless teenagers around. Makes him feel like a big, strong man. 

“I'll pay for that,” Derek says, and Stiles flops back onto his bed with an annoyed grunt. 

“I'm working,” he spits. “I don't need your money. I'll make it myself.” 

“Don't be _fucking_ stubborn.” 

“Why don't you drop the god damn white knight routine for _five seconds_?” 

Incensed, Derek steps toward where he's layed out on the bed, hovering directly over him and meeting his eyes. “You're really going to _work_ , now? After getting the shit beat out of you?” 

“Please,” he rolls his eyes again, and splays his hands out on his stomach, getting comfortable in the bed, as though this conversation is nothing to him. “I've gotten much worse than this.” 

He's probably right. It wouldn't surprise Derek if Stiles had been beaten close to within his life before, somewhere in an alley, left there for dead until the cops found him and dragged him to a hospital. 

“And worked on even worse, at that,” he pokes at the gash on his face, grimaces just slightly, and then nods his head. “This is nothing.” 

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek puts on his best warning voice – the same one that Hale underlings are so fucking afraid of having directed at them, immediately jumping to do whatever it is that Derek's asked.

Stiles, on the other hand, just sits up in the bed, looks at him with some level of annoyance, and frowns. “You know, it's fine if you want to come along and do me favors. But don't get in my fucking way.” 

“Your _way_ ,” Derek leans down, until they're almost at eye level, but Stiles doesn't even flinch, “is going to put you in a coffin, if you don't start watching yourself.” 

“You're the one who told me to stay away from him,” Stiles hisses into his face, upper lip curling in anger. “You're the reason he came and found me and beat me to begin with.” 

It's harsh, but it's the reality. He rubs his face and takes a step back, nodding his head, muttering under his breath. “I know. _Fuck_.” In front of him, there's a pile of knick knacks beside the television – two lighters, a pile of quarters, a punch card for the hot dog cart a couple blocks down. It speaks to just how little Stiles has in his life; these lighters might be the only personal items he even has. All of it just makes Derek that much angrier. 

“I watch myself just fine, believe it or not. I don't _need_ Derek Hale fucking hovering over my shoulder.” 

“Clearly, you do.” 

“This is because of you!” He repeats, pointing to his face and shaking his head. “I was better off before, _clearly_.” 

Derek snorts. “Right. Starving and living on the street.” 

“ _Fuck. You_.” 

Derek is just about to open his mouth and really let him have it, saying what, he doesn't know but definitely something that he would come to regret within the hour, but then, three knocks come from the motel room door. Stiles sits up all the way, rubs at his eyes a little blearily, and then gives Derek what would certainly quantify as a _hate glare_. 

All things said, Stiles is still a teenager. That is the face he used to give his parents when they wouldn't let him eat another cookie, he's sure of it. 

“Fuck off,” he says, standing up, moving to pushing some of the clothes off the bed into a small pile on the carpet. “That's work.” 

Derek swallows, glancing towards the door. He's hesitating. 

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles snaps, and then literally snaps in his face, like he suspects that Derek is in some sort of a stupor. “Get the hell out of here, will you? I've had more than enough Hales for one fucking day.” 

With one last withering glare at Stiles, and the bruises on his face, and his shitty, shitty motel room with the broken lamp and the TV that still has ears on top of it, Derek moves. He takes the five steps he needs to to get to the door, and pulls it open.

Standing there is who has to be the _Carl_ that Stiles thought that Derek had been. And he looks exactly like Derek had pictured him the second he heard the name – a pudgy forty-something in a blue collar suit that he might've bought at Wal Mart or a thrift store, sweaty brow, nervous little rat eyes inside of his skull. 

He looks at Derek, and Derek looks back. Nervously, Carl swallows, glancing over Derek's shoulder to where Stiles is standing, and then he breathes a sigh of relief. Carl probably thinks exactly what the woman outside smoking had thought – Derek is Stiles' pimp. The thought is so ridiculous Derek feels like laughing, but then again, he doesn't at all.

Finally, Derek starts to move. He takes a step forward and Carl jerks to step out of his way quickly, eyes finally seeing past him and leering at Stiles – it all happens in the span of maybe a millisecond. Derek moving, Carl moving, Carl looking at Stiles with intent, and then Derek is grabbing him and slamming his head against the concrete wall beside Stiles' door. 

That's all it takes, and Carl is out like a light. Shit, Derek may have killed him. He doesn't know. There's blood on the wall, trickling down as Carl slowly slides along it, unconscious or dead. He collapses into a heap on the ground, and Derek takes a step back to appraise his work. 

Stiles thinks it's a fight, because he can't see much aside from Derek, and Carl on the ground. He has no idea Carl is out of commission, perhaps permanently. He says, “oh, for fuck's sake,” and throws his hands in the air. “You _fucking piece of shit_.” 

Derek bends down, rifles around in the pockets of Carl's jacket, and finds a velcro wallet. As he's pawing around, Carl groans, which is probably good. It's _probably_ good that Derek didn't just kill someone in a motel, right outside of where Stiles is staying. All the same, Derek rips the wallet open, pulls out the sixty four dollars he has, and then stands back up to his full height. 

Stiles is standing there, angry and indignant, and Derek throws the money at him so the twenties and ones flutter all around in the air, landing haphazardly around Stiles' feet. Stiles looks down at it, chin wobbling, and then clenches his hands into fists at his sides when he starts to cry. 

“There,” Derek hisses, tossing the wallet back into Carl's lap. Another groan. That's probably good. “Job done.” 

As he's turning to leave, Stiles sniffles, wiping the length of his forearm across his face. “You stay away from me,” he says, probably trying to sound tough – since he's crying, and seventeen, it just sounds weak. “I mean it. Stay the hell away from me.”

Derek nods, but he won't. He knows he won't. Even more than that, he knows he just _can't_ , anymore. He went ahead and nearly murdered someone for trying to put their hands on Stiles, for Christ's sake – it's safe to fucking say that he's invested in the situation, now. 

As he's leaving, he slams the motel door behind him, and then squats down to meet Carl at eye level. His eyes are open, but he looks dazed, blood pouring from the wound on his head. Derek thinks briefly about calling an ambulance, just to be safe, but then as quickly as the thought comes, it goes. 

Carl meets his eyes, looking frightened, and Derek could laugh. “If you ever come around him again,” he starts, but he doesn't have to finish, because Carl is already frantically nodding his understanding. Derek tries to feel like he's done something, kept one more grown man from taking advantage of Stiles' youth and desperation, but Carl must be just one out of dozens. Derek's done absolutely nothing in the long run. 

When he gets down to the parking lot, he moves to pull his keys out of his pocket and get the hell out of there, but a familiar dark blue car pulls up right behind him. Even if he wanted to pull out now, he couldn't. Derek sighs, slides his keys back into his pocket, and glances back up at Stiles' door. He hasn't come out, and Carl still hasn't moved from that spot. 

He walks to the car waiting for him, opens up the passenger door, and climbs inside. He's assaulted by the scent of Lydia's perfume, and even moreso by the stony blank stare that Lydia gives him as soon as he closes the door behind himself.

They sit there in silence for a moment. Lydia staring at him, Derek staring pointedly dead ahead at the parking lot, and the video rental store beyond it. Then, without a word, Lydia pulls forward and drives her way out of the parking lot, leaving Derek's car and Stiles behind. 

Lydia maneuvers through what little traffic there is this time of night, gripping the wheel so hard her knuckles turn white. She's angry, and it's obvious, but when she speaks, her voice is level, and calm. “You are getting into more trouble than usual.”

He shifts in his seat. “That was an accident.” 

One eyebrows raises, and she gives him a steady stare before turning back to the road. “Grabbing a man and trying to shove his head through concrete is an accident? You're lucky he's alive.”

_Lucky_ , Derek thinks, bitterly shaking his head. Lucky would be if he had died, if all men like him, who take advantage of kids like Stiles, would _die_. But, she does have a point – not only is it out of character for him to act so violently, but it's just...stupid of him. To try and kill some random guy right there in semi-public. “I know,” he says between grit teeth. 

Lydia pulls over on the side of the road, outside of a bank closed for the night, and takes her keys out of the ignition. “That was one of Stiles' regulars,” she says coolly, keys in her lap. “He's had sex with Stiles more times than I can count on one hand – how's that make you feel?” 

Derek jiggles his leg up and down, just thinking about it. _Thinking_ about that piece of shit, probably who has a wife and a kid at home, running his disgusting hands all over Stiles, over and over again... “It makes me want to go back and finish what I started.” 

She doesn't seem very surprised, at all. She just nods her head, like she expected that answer, and then turns to face forward, looking out across the street. “How many times have I told you that personal interests aren't going to do anything but fuck you over?” 

“Does it matter?” Derek asks, shaking his head. “It's done. I'm in it.” 

“You sure are. And now Peter wants to use him just to get to you, and you're walking around trying to kill people who want to pay him for the job he literally does, and leaving messes for me to fucking clean up.” 

“Are you telling me to stop?” 

“I know better than that,” she laughs without any humor, rolling her eyes. “You've gone and fostered yourself a liability. What do you plan on doing about it?” 

Derek sits there and stares at his hands where they rest on his knees, and knows that there's nothing he _can_ do about it. The best he could do is dump Stiles in another shelter, but he'll get out in the morning, and it'll start all over again. He can't protect Stiles from Peter, he can't stop Stiles from having sex with strangers for money, or selling drugs, or any of it. Stiles is a street rat. It's what he does. “I don't know.” 

“I do,” she tosses her hair over her shoulder and pulls a cigarette out from her purse, lighting it. “Keep your distance.” 

“That's not -”

“I didn't say _abandon him_ ,” she snaps as she lets a cloud of smoke out in between them, filling the space of the car before it spills out her cracked open window. “I said, _distance_. There's nothing you can do about the fact that he turns tricks.” 

“I -”

“You what? You're going to punch everyone who looks at him too long? Please,” she rolls her eyes and leans back in her seat, shaking her head. “Keep your fucking distance, Derek. I mean it. The more invested Peter thinks that you are, the more leverage you give him to do something even worse, either to yourself, or to him.” 

It's the irrefutable truth, and he knows it all too well. Derek doesn't know what Peter would do to him just to get to Derek, but he's already started with beating him around, and that's more than enough damage for a lifetime. 

“I just can't...” Derek starts, rubbing his face up and down, “I just can't stand that he's in this situation.” 

“I know,” she says, softer than usual. “He put himself there. He's stupid. The most you can do is make sure he isn't getting himself killed, and from what I've seen, that might start with keeping him away from you.” 

Unfair, Derek thinks. So fucking unfair. 

“I'll keep an eye on him,” she throws the rest of her cigarette out the window and starts the car with a quiet purr. “I guess that's just something else I have to keep from Peter.” 

Looking down at his hands, Derek frowns. “Thanks, for that.” 

“It's nothing,” she insists, pulling away from the curb and doing a U-turn in the middle of the empty street. “You'd be amazed at the sheer number of things he doesn't know about. Stiles is just another to the list.” 

Derek always thought that Lydia told Peter nearly everything, all the sordid details, pictures, eyewitness accounts, save for a few things she wanted to keep to herself. Apparently, he'd been wrong about that, if she's so cavalier about keeping something this big from him. He looks out the window as the motel comes back into view, grimacing at the sight of his own park job. It's amazing he hasn't been towed away, yet. “Don't you ever get scared -”

“My whole life is being afraid.” The car slows right behind his own, casting its headlights over the parking lot eerily, and Lydia doesn't meet his eyes. “I've gotten used to it. I've even started getting a full five hours of sleep a night.” 

As for Derek, he can't even get that much if he's not passing out drunk or coming down from a trip. He wonders how Peter sleeps; probably just fine. People with no conscience tend to fair better than the rest of the world. The less you care about, the less empathy you have, the healthier you likely are. 

“Like I said, I'll watch out for him. He's not prone to getting into big trouble, but he's...who he is.” 

It's a small consolation. The door to Stiles' motel room is still closed up tight, but Carl isn't on the balcony anymore, and the lights are off aside from the blue glow of the television. Hopefully, he's in bed half asleep watching TV and not out wandering the streets. 

“Okay,” Derek says, watching the lights flicker through the blinds. It's all he can really do. 

Not seeing Stiles is easier than Derek thought it would be – all he has to do is not actively look for him, or wander around the streets late at night, and Stiles is practically just gone. He avoids the block with Scott's bar on it like the plague, and most importantly, avoids that entire street altogether. It's Stiles' hub, after all, those specific corners and alleys a second home to him. Or, maybe even just the only home he has anymore. 

Mostly, Derek goes to Pacers. He starts going back nearly every night just like he used to before meeting Stiles, and Peter notices, luckily. Derek sits on that stupid couch in that stupid fucking VIP section and gets blasted drunk, meets random girls, takes them home – all under the watchful gaze of his uncle, who seems relatively pleased with this development. Why he cares so much about what Derek does with Stiles is a mystery he may never get to solve, but if staying away from him is really all it takes for Peter to do the same, then Derek knows it's the only option he has. 

So he keeps it up. It's a long week, that first one, spent hoping that Lydia has stuck to her word and at least checks up on him every other day to make sure that he's still alive and relatively as all right as he can be. He doesn't ever ask her when he sees her at the club, more because he doesn't want anyone to overhear that conversation and relay it back to Peter, and she's composed enough to never give any indication of what's going on. If something happened to him, Lydia would tell him, but she's been silent, so he takes that as a good sign. 

When he's sober, half of what he thinks about is whether or not Stiles is okay, what he's doing, if he's got enough money for rent and food both. When he's not, he doesn't much think about anything. It reminds him of why he ever enjoyed this lifestyle so much to begin with – the days all bleed into the next, like one giant party. A theater production where everyone pretends that life could be really be this fucking simple, this mindless, this watered down. It's an experience Stiles must never get to have himself. 

Erica plops down next to him one night, outside the back of the bar where all the smokers congregate, and wraps her arm around his shoulders. “You've been around a lot more lately.”

“Yup,” he says. He's not had nearly enough to drink to deal with Erica, who's drunk enough that it takes her a second to get her cigarette lit. 

“For a while there you were, like, incognito.” 

It's the wrong use of the word, he thinks, but he doesn't make a comment on it. He just sips his drink, and nods along. “I got busy.” 

“Right.” She takes a drag, blinking out at the night sky. “With your charity work.” 

“Something like that. How's work?” 

She laughs, long and loud. “Horrible!” 

“Isn't it always?” 

All of the sudden, she gets a serious look on her face. Serious Erica any time of day isn't exactly great news, but when she manages to get serious even after she's had a lot to drink, Derek knows that he, too, should probably take it pretty seriously. She puts her drink down on the ground with a clink against the concrete, and then straightens herself back up to look into Derek's eyes. “I mean, more than usual.” 

Derek looks around to check if anyone is listening to them – the crowd tonight is drunk college kids, gathered around in a circle by the metal bucket ash trays and picnic tables, engrossed in their own conversations. 

“Things are just a fucking disaster,” she curls her upper lip and ashes. “To the point where I half think Peter is almost purposefully trying to sabotage his own operation. Which is nuts, but – then – so is he, I am starting to believe.” 

“He is,” Derek promises darkly. Absolutely batshit insane. That's been heavily backed up by previous experiences for Derek, dating all the way back to when he was just a kid before he fully understood what the word _sociopath_ meant. 

“He had me hire these people, who are fifteen times worst than who I had working before.” 

“The people he had killed, you mean.” 

Erica rubs her lips together and looks away. That must be something that's been eating away at her conscience – Derek feels shitty for even bringing it up. “He had those people gone because he thought they were incompetent. Now, he's got these fucking _goons_ slinging, and it doesn't make any god damn sense. They get into fights, start shit all over the city, and in general draw attention to themselves, and by association, _us_.” 

Derek furrows his brow. The last thing anyone in this business wants is excess attention, especially when it comes to things like fighting in the fucking streets, shit that gets cops showing up on corners and dragging people in for questioning. 

“Worst of it is, they keep going into Raeken territory. Starting fights _there_.” She lets that hang there for a moment, the gravity of the situation weighing down on everything else. “Fighting with fucking Raekens – why not just go down to Hell and challenge Satan to a fucking sparring match?” 

That would explain why Stiles got cornered by one of them when he just barely wandered over to the edge; if Hales are actively showing up and starting trouble, then they're all probably on high alert over there, keeping watch and getting ready to strike if need be. “You think he's starting trouble with Raekens on purpose?” 

“All I know is, I specifically tell them time and time again not to go over there, and they do it anyway. I tell Peter they won't listen to me, and he doesn't seem to care. Fucking three of my people have been taken into police custody, and he _still_ won't get rid of them. It's fucking Apocalypse, Now.” 

It's insane, absolutely and positively insane to Derek that Peter would purposefully be sending their own over to spar with Theo Raeken and his band of merry murderers. It would be the shot heard around the world if anyone actually got killed on either side, the start of another turf war like the last one that happened back in the 90's. Derek would think that the last thing _either_ of them would want is another of those, when the waters have been relatively calm for so long; both sides living in tolerance if not exactly actual peace. Less death on the streets, less civilian involvement, less trouble, period. It would be insane to try and shit all over that, now.

But, like Erica said and like Derek has always known, Peter _is_. 

“Someone's going to get killed,” Erica says, shaking her head as she jabs her cigarette out on the concrete underneath their feet. “I just hope to fuck it doesn't wind up being me. I saw a Raeken wandering around by the divide a night or two ago, just standing there a block away from Hale territory, like he owned the place.” 

Derek sighs, shaking his head. He hasn't personally set eyes on a Raeken anywhere but Raeken territory in literal years. The most frequent spot for a Raeken and Hale to cross paths is at the grocery store downtown that sits conveniently right in between the two halves of the city, affectionately named _the bridge_. Most of the time though, they're civil adults, and buy their milk and eggs without even acknowledging one another. 

If Raekens are edging closer to Hale turf and vice versa, then it's only a matter of time before something happens. Something really, really bad. 

“I don't have any control under what happens in my own jurisdiction,” she takes the drink out of Derek's hand as though she forgot that hers is still sitting on the ground, and takes a long swig, “Lydia doesn't fucking sleep, Laura calls _me_ to scream about it because she can't very well scream at Peter...” 

It sounds a lot like the buildup to a climax. Derek hopes beyond hope that the big event will be everyone realizing that Peter has lost his marbles, that he can't be trusted, that they should oust him or kill him and put Erica in charge. Fuck, even _Laura_ , strung out as she is half the time, would be a better leader than Peter could be. 

Something tells him that no matter how much wishful thinking he does, that's not going to be the end result. 

Derek goes home to the other side of town, shoved into the backseat of a cab by an incredibly annoyed Laura who more or less punches him in the nose somewhere along the line, maybe on accident or maybe as punishment for getting this drunk, and then stumbles his way up to his penthouse. The usual bodyguard is standing outside the door, and has to actually help Derek with his key so he can get inside and stop being a fucking disaster. 

When he staggers across his floors, he thinks his bed is too far away and settles for throwing himself onto the couch instead, face first, sinking deep into the cushions and becoming one with them. A second or two passes as the world around him spins, and then he's tilting his head and opening his eyes, patting at his pockets to make sure he has both his wallet and his phone. Otherwise they're either in the backroom at Pacers or dropped on a sidewalk somewhere. 

It's then that he sees the playing card still sitting on the coffee table, sitting face up, the king staring blankly off across the room. Derek paws for it, fitting it in between two fingers just like how Stiles always does, and then brings it up to his face to blurrily examine.

It fades in and out of focus in the dim lighting, but Derek thinks he can see the outline of some of Stiles' fingerpints in dirt and blood. He stares at it for several seconds, thinking about all the time it must have spent in the back of one of his pockets or between his fingers, maybe one of his most prized possessions. He thinks about how Peter has touched this, stole it, that the blood stains on it are from Stiles' blood, and that the fingerprints must be Peter's own that he wiped off with disgust, as though it were nothing more than animal blood. 

Then, he rips it up. 

The next morning, Derek wakes up to see Boyd's face hovering over where he's still sprawled across the couch. It's more than a little startling, but Derek just blinks at him for a second, making sure he's not just a hologram or a very vivid and frankly quite boring hallucination, before lifting his hand to slowly wipe at the drool he has dribbling out of his mouth. 

“Nice,” Boyd says. 

“Thanks.” 

Derek sits up, head pounding because he forgot to drink water with advil last night, and frowns at his surroundings. It's his home, at least, and he can feel the bulge of his wallet and phone in his pocket – the pieces of one of Stiles' cards are all over the couch, because apparently he sixteenthed it last night in a fit of drunken rage. Boyd watches all of this without comment, taking a step back to give Derek some room for him to start becoming vaguely human again. 

“I'd say this is embarrassing,” Boyd says, assessing Derek in all his glory, “but I've definitely seen you worse.” 

“A small consolation,” Derek mutters, wiping the last of the drool off of his chin. He rubs at his head, and is grateful when Boyd hands him an already opened bottle of water. “Did you come here just to make sure I didn't fall off my balcony last night?” 

As Derek takes a long swig of the water, Boyd looks away as though he's not looking forward to the conversation they're about to have. It's out of character for Boyd to ever beat around the bush or even flat out hesitate. When Talia died, Boyd walked right into Derek's bedroom while he was asleep and announced it like it was any other piece of information, the weather or the stock market. It sounds cold, but looking back on it now, he's thankful it was Boyd and not Laura, who punched her fist through a wall when she found out and spent the next month with a brace on her hand as a reminder of one of the most horrible moments of her entire life. 

When Boyd says, “Lydia asked me to give you a message,” Derek starts to understand his reluctance. If this is about Stiles, and it really seems like it is as there's nothing else Lydia could possibly want to deliver him a message about, and if Lydia told Boyd about Derek nearly killing someone for Stiles' sake, then Boyd is more than right to be a little wary. It also explains why Boyd is the one delivering this information instead of Lydia – who talks a big game, but has a tendency to vanish to the shadows when things get too serious for her to handle. 

The first thought he has is that Stiles is dead. Frankly, it's the most viable possibility. His heart sinks deep into his chest. The second thought he has is that he really fucking regrets ripping up that playing card last night when it was the only thing he had of Stiles', and now, perhaps poetically, all that's left of it is a dozen shards all over the couch and the surrounding floor. 

Boyd is perceptive, so he gauges exactly what's going through Derek's mind just from looking at his face. “Stiles is – fine,” he pauses over the word, meaning that Stiles is alive and walking around, but he's not in all senses _doing okay_. 

Still, it's a relief. Derek breathes out a deep sigh and puts his head in his hands, palms pressing against his cheeks. A part of him thinks that he genuinely wouldn't be able to live with himself if Stiles got killed, and an even bigger part of him thinks he'd hold it against Lydia for the rest of their lives for making Derek stay away from him when obviously he was needed. 

A few seconds later, while Derek is still collecting himself and having semi-realistic visions of Stiles bleeding out in a dark alley somewhere, Boyd throws something down onto the coffee table with a _slap_. Derek lifts his face out of his hands just enough that his eyes are peaking through, and finds a manila folder with Lydia's familiar stamp in the corner – her initials in a fiery orange. It's the one she uses when the contents of the folder are what she considers to be confidential. 

Derek stares at it, and then meets Boyd's eyes. He, for one, looks like he knows exactly what's in that folder, and isn't all too happy to be the one who has to share this with Derek. Probably out of fear for what Derek's reaction is going to be. 

As Derek has said, he hasn't spent a lot of time engaging in the formalities of all that the family business entails. He's never shot anyone, never done any dealing, never gotten into fucking gang fights or any of the like – while nearly everyone, Boyd and even Lydia included, have done all of that and more. But Derek has gotten a reputation for one thing over the years, and it's most definitely where all the crazy street stories about him have come from. He has what some people might consider to be a bit of a mythic short fuse, ready to explode at any given second. Flipping tables over, throwing glasses against the wall, slamming people's heads into concrete walls. Things like that. 

Without any further adieu, Derek pulls the folder off the table and drops it into his lap, fingering underneath the top flap, then pausing. He quickly tries to think of any number of things that could be in here that Lydia would deem as something Derek needs to be aware of that don't include Stiles being flat out dead. It's possible he'll open it up and find more pictures of Peter beating the shit out of him, and it's possible he'll find pictures of Stiles getting himself arrested, or Stiles being carted off in an ambulance. He mentally prepares himself for any one these outcomes, imagines them in his head so when he actually has to see any of them immortalized in film in front of him he might be able to handle it, and then he opens the folder. 

It's eerie seeing Stiles frozen still in a picture instead of in person, right in front of Derek – he looks a little different through the lens of a camera. Younger, maybe, more clear faced because the camera can't pick up the bags under his eyes or all the details of the fading bruises he has across his cheeks and neck. He's got his head ducked in the first picture, looking at something in his hands. Closer inspection has it at the deck of cards, blurred from how quickly he's shuffling them, and there's someone standing in front of him watching as he does so. From this angle, Derek can't make out who it is. 

The next picture is the same, only Stiles is looking up and meeting the stranger's eyes, a thin smile on his face. There's a few in perfect secession of Stiles doing his card trick, and then, finally, Lydia manages to snap a photo at the exact moment that the shadow in front of Stiles turns their head, so there's a clear and perfect view of their face lit up by the streetlight they're standing underneath. 

Derek can recognize any Raeken, even ones he's never seen before, within two seconds of spotting them, no matter the situation. They make absolutely no efforts of concealing who they are, walking around all looking like little clones of their pompous fucking leader. This particular Raeken, however, Derek knows almost personally. 

It's Theo's stupid little righthand man. Theo might be the _supreme_ as far as that group is concerned, but in a lot of ways it's almost more nominal than it is anything else. He only got to where he is now by killing the older members of his own family himself. The cops might not have deduced as much, but Derek knew the second he heard that Theo's father had been cut into pieces that it was Theo's handiwork. It is, after all, his signature. It's of course more than a little disconcerting that he's a knife wielding maniac, but it doesn't speak volumes about how qualified he actually is to _run_ things. So, he more or less is the figurehead of a regime that's overseen and controlled by his friend Matt – that guy, who's standing less than a foot away from Stiles and putting his hand on Stiles' shoulder. 

Derek looks up from the picture for just a second, staring blankly out into space as he lets this sink over him. The few interactions that Derek has had with Matt have lead him to believe that, to start with, Matt might actually be a sociopath as much as Theo is, and beyond that, the guy is just...well. Not the kind of person you want to be standing alone on an empty street with past a certain time of night. As far as Derek knows, Theo might be the one who people fear on name alone, but Matt is the one people fear _with good reason_. 

Frankly, neither of them have ever particularly scared Derek, not even when he's run into either one of them and been outright threatened and insulted. He's always thought that when push came to shove, they were good at running their half of the city into the ground by being power hungry, but couldn't come through and do a single thing to the Hales – who actually know what they're doing. So, no, they've never scared him. Until right about now. 

He meets eyes with Boyd, who's as stone-faced as he ever is, and quickly flips to the next picture, almost dreading what he's going to find there. 

Matt puts his arm around Stiles' shoulders, and he's got one of Stiles' cards in between his fingers – which makes Derek briefly so angry he thinks he could literally punch himself in the face as an outlet. The next two are of Matt guiding Stiles down an alley, probably the one that Stiles had been running shop out of all night long, and the last and final photo is of Stiles emerging from the alley himself with a small wad of bills in his hand, looking no worse for wear, if a little dazed around the eyes. Lydia might have only included that one in the pile just to let Derek know that Matt didn't drag Stiles down there to actually _kill_ him; apparently, now among the rest of Matt's charming traits, he's also soliciting teenage hookers. 

It makes him _angry_ that Stiles is having sex with a Raeken, yes, but he tells himself that it's no worse than any of the other clientele he must have. If Matt didn't push him around or do other weird shit to him that's not unlike what he deals with any given day, then that's not horrible. Still, Derek can't help the feeling he gets, like he wants to just cross over into Raeken territory, hunt Matt down, and punch his face in repeatedly to the point where they'll have to use his teeth to identify the body. 

After a moment of stewing in his own quiet rage, Derek flips back to the second picture in the stack, of Stiles giving Matt that uncomfortable smile that, captured in film, looks more terrified than it does anything else. “Where were these taken?” He asks, not seeing a street sign anywhere in the shot. 

Boyd doesn't say anything for a long moment, but then he clears his throat. “Corner of 6th and Knight.” 

For _fuck's_ sake. Derek leans back in the couch, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. Stiles, because he's a fucking idiot, had once again witlessly wandered off to the boarder. Which in and of itself is one thing. Idiotic, at best. But considering the fact that tensions are rising between either half of the city, fights breaking out, and also considering the fact that Stiles had somehow managed to magnetize the _worst possible person_ to himself within a single night of standing out there...

“He is going to fucking get himself killed,” Derek tosses the folder down onto the table again, so the pictures scatter across it in a fan, the corners of each covering up Matt's half of the image, creating a slide show of Stiles' facial expressions staring out into space. 

“Lydia seems to agree with that sentiment,” Boyd says, quiet but no less serious. “She thinks he would benefit from a crash course in street signs. Specifically in reading them.” 

Derek rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “He could _benefit_ from getting off the streets altogether.” 

Ignoring that, Boyd goes on. “She's probably going to pick him up,” he bends down to collect the pictures, filing them back into their folder, “she just wanted you to know she's asked me to grab him and stuff him in the back of her car.” 

It'll probably scare Stiles half to death, but he deserves it. If he can't follow the _simple_ and basic rules of not fucking wandering around selling Hale product and turning tricks on the boundary between Raeken and Hale territory, then someone needs to scare him shitless to remind him. 

“She also wanted to extend an invitation to you.” 

“An invitation?” To do what, Derek wants to ask – sit in the car and stare Stiles down with an intimidating glare? Last time the two of them spoke to one another, or even laid eyes on each other at that, they definitely didn't leave on good terms. Stiles probably still has the blood all over the wall outside of his motel room to remind him of just how angry he is at Derek every time he comes or goes. Not to mention the fact that Stiles hasn't even called him since the fact. It's been a little over a week and a half, and Stiles has ghosted himself back to wandering the streets as a shadow, as far as Derek is concerned. Probably, he's doing it on purpose. One thing no one can say about Stiles is that he isn't fucking pitbull determined to be a stubborn mule whenever someone tries to tell him what to do.

Though, he wouldn't be surprised if Lydia and Boyd somehow manage to convince him to stop sneaking over the divide. Lydia is scary in her own rite, and Boyd looks like he could snap someone's neck without trying all that hard, so to have both of them bearing down on him at once might actually do the trick. 

Derek doesn't know if he'd be able to add much to the conversation. Stiles doesn't want to see him, and Lydia promised she'd handle everything where he's concerned, so it doesn't much matter how badly Derek wants to be there.

Why he wants to be there, he isn't sure. Just add it to the list of confusing emotions Stiles has managed to draw out of him since they first met. “That's fine,” Derek says, shaking his head. “I'm sure Lydia can scare him straight on her own.” 

“I'm sure.” Boyd tucks the folder underneath his arm. 

“What are you going to do with those?” It's anyone's guess what Peter would do with the knowledge that the teenager he's trying to rookie into Hale business has just slept with Theo Raeken's righthand man, but it's fair to go ahead and assume that it wouldn't be good. 

“Burn them.” He gives Derek a steady look, like he knows something about him that Derek hasn't been able to figure out for himself, just yet. “Lydia's been keeping a lot more secrets ever since you took up with this kid.” 

“I didn't _take up_ with him,” Derek hisses, hating the implication. 

“Well, what do I know?” he says, dismissive as he always is. Whatever Boyd really thinks, he'll never let on, and Derek would not be shocked to discover that he hardly cares enough about anything aside from Erica to even _have_ an opinion. 

“He's just proven himself to be in desperate need of someone to make sure he doesn't get his brains splattered all over the street,” Derek half-mutters this under his breath, grimacing as he imagines that exact scenario inside his own head. “I thought you, of all people, would be sympathetic to that.” 

Boyd doesn't let a flicker of emotion cross his face, because years of working as a bouncer at a club run by drug dealers hardens a person to pretty much anything anyone says or does. But, he nods his head once in acceptance of the point. He remembers just as well as Derek what kind of place Erica was in before Boyd convinced Talia to take her in as one of their own to get her off the streets. 

That just might be something that haunts him, when he looks at how everything has turned out, but he made that decision because he didn't see any other options to help her. By the time she was nineteen, she was already so deep into the system, a living breathing organ inside of it, to the point where she didn't know how to do or to be anything else. 

Any attempts to integrate her back into being a normal person would've been a waste. She'd have either gone to jail or wound up dead, so Boyd dragged her into all of this as a last resort. When it was Talia they were all working for, it didn't seem so fucking dire. Things are different now. 

It's plain as day that Stiles is heading on the exact same trajectory, learning to see the streets as the only place he'll ever truly fit. Derek thinks about Stiles winding up in Erica's position as she is, now. Having money and nice clothes and an actual place to live with his own bed. It's a dream vision, for a kid like him, the holy grail for street rats all over the city. 

But, and he's naive enough to not have considered this, he'd also be underneath Peter's thumb like a bug, being asked to have groups of people killed, being sent out into the streets himself to do whatever Peter doesn't feel like – sent to the front lines of whatever ridiculous turf war that Peter is trying to brew up, now. 

“I guess you think that's not an option.” Boyd doesn't have to clarify exactly what he means, because for the last several seconds of silence, both of them know exactly what was going through the other's mind. Before Derek has a chance to even think of a response, Boyd is turning and walking towards the front door. “It might be the only one.” 

Once he's gone, Derek is left alone in his ostentatious, over sized apartment, with nothing but a hangover and a ripped up playing card to keep him company. It's funny, maybe sad even moreso, that he half wishes he still had one of those pictures that Lydia had taken of Stiles – even though he looked scared and young and stupid, at least it would've been something. Lately, Derek's felt like he needs reminders that Stiles is actually alive, out there, but he doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to say that for. 

Derek drives past the motel by the video rental store and can't help slowing down as he goes by, craning his neck to get a look at the door with the golden number 10 nailed to its face. The blood stain is still there, all right, but it looks like someone's gone out of their way to try to scrub it off the concrete, to almost no avail. The window next to Stiles' door has its blinds shut tight, but Derek can still tell there are no lights turned on inside, not even the glow of the television set. 

He hits the gas as soon as he loses sight of the door and the motel at large, and he pointedly doesn't scan the sidewalks for any trace of Stiles himself, either walking to work or coming back home.


	4. Chapter 4

Lydia does have an office, though it's not, as one would imagine, covered in super zoomed in pictures of someone being stabbed or of street transactions – she doesn't even bring any of her cameras into the office building with her, because she's technically supposed to be an accountant. It makes Derek laugh every time he thinks about it. Lydia crunching numbers behind a desk, dental and life insurance stacked up along with a steady paycheck coming along every two weeks. 

As it is, all her money is given under the table and laundered through the “business.” But she has to have an office to make it look legitimate, so she does. It's a corner one, with the biggest window (because of course) and a handful of personal knick knacks she has lined up. No pictures of friends or family, because not a single one of them _has_ any friends or family left to speak of, but she's got a paper mache dragon she picked up in Mexico and a series of colored pens neatly lined up for her to choose from. 

Right now, she's sitting in her swivel chair with her laptop open, chewing on the end of a highlighter and tapping her foot incessantly on the carpet as she waits to Derek to hurry up and sit down so she can get started. Derek sits in one of the chairs waiting in front of her desk that no one but himself or Boyd or Erica ever sits in, and the first thing Lydia says is, “good news or bad news first?” 

Derek had been hoping there wouldn't be any bad news, but naturally that had been wishful thinking. He should be more surprised that there's any good news whatsoever – like he's said before, it's nearly a miracle that Stiles has survived this long on his own. “Bad news.” 

She smiles, though not with any real amusement, and tucks her hair behind her ear. “First of all, he's apparently been kicked out of that shantyhouse he was staying in for bringing undesirables to the manager's place of business -” 

Derek shakes his head and rolls his eyes to the ceiling. Of course Stiles is homeless again. Of fucking course he is. “ _Undesirables_? That entire place is a fucking undesirable in and of itself.” 

She nods her head, raising her eyebrows in agreement. “That's what I said. Either way, his exact words when he told me were that -” she holds her fingers up as air quotes as she says this, “ _joke's on them, because I couldn't even pay rent this week_.” He can hear this as clear as day in Stiles' voice, the facial expression, the indignant set to his eyes before he rolls them. 

“Jesus Christ.” It'd be funny if it weren't simultaneously so fucking depressing and exactly what Derek expected, at that. “Where did you even _find_ him?” 

“Oh, he's easy to find,” she waves her hand like it was nothing – for her, it probably _was_ nothing. Half her job is tracking people down like a fucking wolf, smoking them out of their fox holes and snapping their picture to study and examine later on in a red room. Finding a teenager on the streets is child's play to her, in the grand scheme of things. “I don't think he's staying anywhere and he turned his nose up at the idea of going to a shelter, so.” So, he was out there all night last night doing god knows what, and god knows where. So, pretty much, the same as it always was. 

“What's the good news?” 

“The good news is he swears he won't go wandering off to Raeken territory anymore. I showed him a map and everything.” 

Derek snorts. “I bet he loved that.” In his head, he can imagine Stiles glowering at being treated like a fucking idiot, reaching out to rip the map to pieces just on principle. 

“All in all, he's a fucking disaster, but at least he's a disaster that's staying under our general reach of control,” she leans back in her chair and spins it slowly side to side, rubbing at her temples. So long as he doesn't cross the divide for anything other than a pop to Wendy's, he's as safe as he can possibly be. Derek has it on good authority, maybe from his own personal bias, that street kids die quicker out there – because Theo employs them and treats them like expendable trash for him to throw away when he's finished. On Hale territory, there's a surplus of homeless youth it's true, but it's only because they aren't fucking _dying_. 

“He asked after you.”

That's the first thing that Lydia's said since they sat down that actually surprises Derek. He raises his eyebrows and sits up straighter to give her his full attention. “What did he ask specifically?” 

She taps her highlighter on the top of her desk and gives Derek another one of her judgmental looks, loaded with accusations and lectures on how fucking stupid he's being. Thankfully she doesn't speak any of them out loud, and instead chooses to just answer Derek's question, albeit only after grumbling something unintelligible under her breath. “He asked why you sent your 'toadies' to do your dirty work for you.” 

That's more than a little fucking annoying. As if Derek wouldn't have done it himself, if he felt like he had any say in the matter? Derek only wishes he had been there when Stiles had called Lydia a “toadie.” He's sure it was fucking priceless. “Is that it?” 

Lydia leans her chin in her palm and looks put out, having to be the messenger between Stiles and Derek. “He wanted to know where you were. He seemed particularly fixated on why you hadn't come along,” she leans back in her seat again with a smirk. “I told him I invited you, and you didn't want to come.” 

“Like it was a party, or something, and not a fucking ambush,” Derek hisses. 

“Ambush is a strong word,” she trails off, tapping her chin with her finger. “It was more, Boyd grabbing him right off the sidewalk and pulling him in through the open back window.”

“Jesus _Christ_...” the image of Stiles fruitlessly kicking his legs as he gets pulled bodily into a vehicle is half funny and half horrifying. 

“Either way, he was put out that you weren't there.” There's a pause, where she takes careful stock of what Derek's body language and facial expressions are in the wake of that. 

“You would say it's for the best that I wasn't.” 

“I would say it's for the best that you didn't go near him at all,” she agrees, nodding her head once curtly. “If he keeps getting himself into trouble, I don't know what I'd say.” 

Derek has been running under the mindset that Stiles is just young and stupid and doesn't know any better, but none of this is truly his fault. Not even on technicality. It's not his fault he got orphaned and it's not his fault this city isn't made for kids like him. If he dies on the streets, it won't be anyone's fault aside from Theo's or Peter's, for making this place so dangerous to begin with. 

Retroactively, Derek might also be responsible for that. But he doesn't want to think about that. “He needs someone to look out for him,” Lydia continues, “I'm happy to do the job, but I can't have my eyes on him 24/7. I've got Peter's duties, still.” 

“And what does that entail, these days?” 

She rubs at her eyes, and Derek remembers Erica telling him how Lydia doesn't sleep anymore – he can see that, plain as day, and has been noticing it for weeks now, in the frown lines around her mouth, and the heavy dark purple bags under her eyes she doesn't even have the time to cover up, anymore. “I've got entire rolls of film of Peter's goons milling around Raeken territory,” she says under her breath, glaring pointedly down at her desk with a set jaw. “Why he has me watching is anyone's guess.” 

Maybe, so when the first shot rings out, Peter will have it frozen in film, something for him to frame as a momento of the start of what might shape up to be one of the more prolific turf wars Beacon Hills has yet to see. Stiles being a kid on the streets to begin with was bad enough. But in the middle of something like that – there's not a doubt in Derek's mind he would wind up in a body bag. 

It's possible that's exactly what Peter wants.

+

Laura has a tendency of always looking like she just rolled out of bed – but at least the bed had Egyptian Cotton sheets and a decent looking stranger. She's got on sweatpants and an athletic hoodie clinging tight to her skin, hair piled up in a messy top knot, sunglasses on her face so no one can see how bloodshot her eyes are. She's very clearly crumbling around the edges, from the terse frown she can't ever seem to replace with anything else to the fact that she keeps nervously wiping underneath her nose to make sure there's not any coke still left for anyone to see. It would be one thing if she were good at hiding it, but she's never been very much good at that.

All the same, Derek knows better than to comment on it. Ever since Talia died, she's been on an unstoppable downward spiral. It's not that she was ever particularly stable even before all that happened, or that she never sampled the product before, but she took Talia's death worse than any of them did. Even worse than Derek, which is sincerely saying something. Derek might have spiraled into a situational depression for weeks on end, but Laura started using more and punching her lackeys in the face just because she could. 

“Thanks for coming with me,” she says, obsessively tugging down on the hem of her sweatshirt as they walk. “You know how much I fucking hate coming here.” 

“It's not a problem,” Derek says back as they draw closer and closer to the automatic doors waiting for them. 

“I'd have gone anywhere else if I had any choice,” the doors open, and then they're inside, met with the familiar smell of packaging and the prepared food sitting underneath glass displays. “But Peter wanted lobster. So.” 

There's only one place in Beacon Hills that sells lobster that isn't absolutely inedible – _fresh_ lobster, where they mill around with their claws rubberbanded closed in a tank before someone comes along to buy them. Of course, that place is what anyone in the know has started calling _the bridge_ , or the one spot in town where the ley lines between Hale and Raeken connect and meet. Back in the 90's, there were so many shootings in the parking lot of this Kroger's (as inane as it sounds) that they literally had to finally close the doors. For a while, there were talks of tearing the place down altogether and leaving an empty lot. 

Once Talia managed to bring the turf war to a screeching halt, things settled down, and eventually Kroger's reopened. There haven't been any real problems there aside from intense staring matches and ugly looks over displays of canned foods in years, so mostly, no one really worries about it. Most people shop there because they don't truly know any better, but it's clientele is largely Raekens. Since they've always loved to try rocking the boat. Hales stay away for the most part – at least, until Peter commands his underlings to go buy fucking fresh lobster and walk the bridge. 

Inside, no one pays them any mind. Hales have a lot less facial recognition, Derek and Laura especially, because even the cops have had a hard time of getting clear pictures of what they look like. The best they have of Derek are probably from grainy security camera footage from when he went to pick up Stiles, which isn't something they can staple around the city to let everyone know they're meant to steer clear of him. 

They walk down the aisles towards the back of the store where the seafood usually lurks, giving everyone around them a wide bearth – Laura walks fast enough that it looks like she's half a step away from breaking into a sprint, and Derek has to actually struggle to keep up, in spite of the fact that he's taller than her by a head. “Is there a fire?” 

“Yes,” she snaps, pushing her sunglasses up and off her face to give Derek a look. It's not very effective. She just looks exhausted and hungover. “The more time we have to spend here, the more likely it is that something's going to go wrong.” 

Derek feels like pointing out that nothing's gone wrong here for a decade, but then he knows that they're walking on pretty fucking thin ice lately. The sheer fact that Peter sent her here to begin with is probably just another chess piece in his game, another piece of meat dangling for the dogs to come snapping at. If Laura knows that as well, she's not commenting on it. 

They see a couple of Raekens, one or two sixteen year olds with the tattoo on their upperarms and the leather bands around their wrists who stare at Derek and Laura as they walk past without even blinking. Laura catches them looking and puts her sunglasses back on, maybe as a sign that she's not here to start a fight. They keep right on staring even as Laura points to a handful of lobsters in the tank. Derek just stands there, hands down at his sides in plain view, trying to look as casual as possible. It's not easy, with eyes on the back of his neck. He feels like he's crawling out of his skin. 

The lobsters come in little baggies shoved into a big paper bag, which Laura snatches out of the butcher's hands so hard it's like she's mad about it – fitting, since she probably is. She slides the hundred dollar bill over the counter and tells him to keep the change, and then just as quickly turns on her heel and beelines it back for the exit. 

Derek tags along quick as he can without drawing any excess suspicion, though a couple of the employees give them looks like _seriously_? He gives them an apologetic shrug and trails after his sister until they're finally half charging through the sliding doors, in the foyer with all the carts and the crane game loaded with stuffed animals. She frowns and squints into the sunlight, even with the protection of her sunglasses on, and Derek finally stuffs his hands down into his pockets. 

“See?” Derek asks her as they're walking outside into the late May heat. “Painless.” 

Laura opens her mouth to fire something back, probably something pretty cutting, but she's interrupted by a shadow advancing across the pavement towards them in the angle of the sun. 

“Hey,” it's half a laugh, like he honestly thinks it's funny that this is happening right now, and then he's standing right there in front of them, tilting his head to the side as he takes in the full sight of them. 

“ _Painless_ ,” Laura repeats at the same time that Derek mutters “for fuck's sake,” under his breath. 

Theo stands and leers for a couple seconds longer, like he just wants this moment and all its awkwardness and vague sense of impending dread to last, and then he's tipping his head sarcastically in greeting. “Nice to see you.” 

“Fantastic,” Laura spits. She moves to walk away to the safety of their car, only a few dozen feet away, but Theo holds his arm out, nearly close enough to touch her. Derek has half a mind to grab that arm, twist it back until it breaks, but that would just start a fight, and of course, that wouldn't be good. He can play cat and mouse all he wants, but Derek is going to fucking rise above it, god dammit. 

Laura steps back into Derek's personal space, and Theo grins. “Hey, now, I just wanna talk for a second. It's been a long time,” he meets Derek's eyes, in specific. “Haven't seen you in a while.” 

“There's a reason,” Derek tells him, as if it even needs to be said at all. 

“Right,” Theo agrees, sounding like he doesn't really agree, at all. “The infantile rules of party lines.” 

“Infantile, yeah,” Laura clutches the lobsters closer to herself, as though she's half planning on pulling them out of their water baggies and setting them loose to claw Theo to death. Honestly, he wouldn't put it past her. “It's only kept the peace for the last fifteen years, but infantile, sure.” 

Theo looks at her like something he wants to take a bite out of, and Derek subconsciously edges closer to her, bumping his chest against her shoulder. “I don't know about you, but being barred from an entire half of the city is starting to feel less and less like _peace_.” 

“Well, we do have the McDonald's with the play pen,” Derek drawls, and Theo swivels his eyes to him. “I know how much of a loss that must be to you.” 

“I just think it's time we readdressed the issue.” 

Theo would love to _readdress the issue_ by shooting either Derek or Laura's brains out here and now – the perfect way to start a war, right in broad daylight so the reporters can get a well lit photo of the blood all over the sidewalk when they print their front page news story. It's what Derek expects, honestly, and he tenses for it, but Theo just stands there smirking and looking exactly like his reputation has always painted him up to be – fucking nuts. 

“And it seems like Peter agrees with me,” he goes on, and Laura's shoulders go rigid. Derek can't fully assess her facial expression from this angle and the impediment of her sunglasses, but he can at least tell that it looks fucking _scared_ , as much as Laura ever lets herself get scared. “Seems inevitable these days, doesn't it?” 

“I guess we'll see you then,” Derek spits, taking hold of Laura's shoulders to guide her off to the car and away from the bridge and Theo altogether, back to their own territory. Right as they're maneuvering past him, Theo snaps his fingers and laughs again, before holding one finger up.

“Hold on, Derek, I've got something for you,” he rifles around in his pockets, both flat with anything aside from what looks like his phone. At least Derek's not about to get shot. 

When he pulls the king of clubs out of his pocket and holds it out in between them, a knowing smile on his face, Derek thinks a bullet might have actually been better. Again, it's the same make and brand that Stiles uses, dirty and old and faded. It couldn't be anyone's but his. He makes eye contact with Theo over the top of the card, and Theo smiles wider. It's anyone's guess what Theo sees there in Derek's face, but whatever it is, it looks like he likes it. 

“That's what I thought,” he says, and Derek rips the card out of his fingers before Theo can utter another fucking word, before Derek does something _stupid_ , like start this turf war himself. 

He walks, keeping his hand on Laura's shoulder, the card crumpled in his other fist until it's almost a ball, all the way to the car. Laura opens the driver's side door after depositing the lobsters in the backseat, and they climb inside at the same time, slam their doors, and then Laura punches the steering wheel. The _honk_ rings out across the parking lot, startling some shoppers into looking over their shoulders and glaring in through their windshield. 

“Mother _fucker_ ,” she hisses, looking over her shoulder to where Theo had been standing. He's still there as a matter of fact, and when he catches them looking, he lifts two fingers in a wave. Derek thinks he could fucking shoot him. 

Instead, he looks down at the card in his hand as he slowly uncurls his fingers. It's got crinkle lines in it now, curving upwards from the strain Derek had put on it, and he wants to rip this one up just the same as the one Peter had given him. 

Laura watches this in silence, and then she mutters a curse under her breath and asks, in a rush, “you know Stiles?” 

Derek looks up, and he's got enough adrenaline and anger running through him that he spits, “ _you_ know Stiles?” out, like a fucking accusation. 

In response to the tone, Laura puts her hands up in surrender and very cautiously says, “okay, yes. He buys weed from one of my girls,” at Derek's facial expression, she clarifies, “to _use_. I don't know him, like, _know him_ , but I – recognize his calling card.” 

Right, Derek thinks. His calling card. It's getting harder to forget that's that what these are supposed to be, when people keep using them to dangle Stiles in front of his face like some kind of instigation. 

“Surprised he's not dead already,” Laura comments, and Derek nods his head. “How do _you_ know him?” 

She would be interested to know, considering Derek historically does not deal with kids like Stiles, let alone get actively involved to the point where _Theo Raeken_ has somehow caught onto it. The trick of it is that Derek still doesn't have an answer. It's complicated, it genuinely is. Derek doesn't know yet how to put into words how it is that he knows Stiles, because part of him knows that he doesn't, not really. Yet, here he is, getting murderous at the prospect of Theo Raeken having been near him at any point in time. “He's a stupid street urchin,” Derek snaps, and finally meets Laura's eyes. She's looking at him, fingers gripped on the steering wheel so hard the leather creaks, so it's clear that she knows there's something more to it than that – but doesn't press the subject. 

Instead, she turns to stare out the windshield, lips curving down into a frown, and shakes her head. “Peter's going to do it, isn't he?” She swallows, adjusting her grip on the wheel. “He's going to start the war all over again.” 

Derek looks at the card in his hand, gritting his teeth. “He already has.”

+

It's possible that Theo got that card from Matt. It's entirely plausible that it's the exact same card that Stiles had given to Matt, and that Matt had just given it to Theo for – for who knows what fucking reason. That's the part that Derek can't figure out.

Because Theo had given that card to Derek as though he knew exactly what kind of emotion he would be gleaning out of Derek when he did so. It's like he knew that Derek knew Stiles, and even beyond that, it's like he certainly knew that Derek gives a shit about Stiles, more than any other person in his position would care about an alleycat like him. 

And nobody who would be in contact with Theo would have that information. Lydia, no. Boyd, no. Laura, obviously not. Erica, _no_. 

Peter, _yes_. 

Which is why he's on the porch steps of Peter's safe house on the other side of town, getting stared down by the lens of a camera as he slides his keycard and punches in the pass code, pushing the door open to find a slew of people hovering around a coffee table on couches or on the floor, drinking and watching television. They all eye him warily. He doesn't make a lot of calls to this house, and when he does, it usually means something bad. They know this. They look at him like they expect him to pull a bomb out of his pocket and throw it into the center of the room to blow them all to hell, but he just glares at them before taking the steps two at a time. 

The hallway has the occasional lackey wandering about, an enforcer or a street walker, each of them silently double taking him as he walks past and throws the door to Peter's office open so hard that it bangs against the opposite wall. 

Peter looks up at him like he expected nothing less than this, leaning back in his chair and raising his eyebrows. “Derek,” he greets, as Derek advances closer and closer to him, “what do I owe this -” 

Just like the first time Derek and Stiles met all those weeks ago, Derek holds the crumpled card up in between them, and Peter zeroes in on it. He smiles, because of course he does, and Derek sets his jaw. “Why,” he starts, and then clears his throat, “did Theo Raeken give this to me at the bridge?” 

“You went to the bridge?” He dodges the question, eyes widening. “That seems out of character.” Derek doing anything but staying out of it in all senses is out of character – but maybe it's about time he started saying _used to be_ out of character. 

“I went with Laura after you sent her on a fucking death errand,” he snaps, and Peter rolls his eyes. 

“The bridge has been quiet for years -”

“ _Why_ ,” Derek repeats, almost yelling it, “does Theo Raeken know who Stiles is? Why did he have this?” 

“How would I know?” He looks so fucking smug, so comfortable in his stupid little domain, and Derek wishes he had the balls to just grab him, beat the shit out of him, end this entire thing once and for all. 

But there's an entire room of people downstairs who would be, if nothing else, scared. They fear the unknown, and Peter is all they know, so they'd defend him if they felt like they had to. They don't fucking know any better. That's how Peter likes them. 

“You,” Derek accuses, pointing at him. “That's how. I know you're _fucking with me_.” 

“Do I need to remind you that this is a _whore_ we're discussing?” He leans forward, placing his hands flat down on his desk. “He has no allegiance to us or the Raekens. He can go pull tricks anywhere he likes.” 

Derek crumbles the card in his hand as he balls it into a fist. 

“The fact that you honestly believe I'd speak with Theo Raeken just to taunt you about your little fascination with useless street scum is more than a little laughable,” he gives Derek this look, all condescending and fucking obnoxious, “I'm starting to worry about you. This is paranoia, plain and simple.” 

“What I honestly believe is that you're trying to run us into the fucking ground,” he tosses the crumpled card onto Peter's desk to emphasize his point, but Peter doesn't look impressed. 

“And what is that supposed to mean?” 

“You want to undo everything Talia did, undo the truce, and drag us all against our will into another fucking _asinine_ fight over the city. That's what you god damn want.” 

Derek had been expecting at least a little denial – maybe a laugh and another claim that Derek is cracked, paranoid, not thinking clearly. 

Instead, Peter mulls that over for a second, casual as ever, and shrugs his shoulders. “Yes, I do.” 

It's so startling that Derek thinks he could black out. He takes a step back from the desk, rubbing his hands up and down his face, as if he's trying to wake himself up from whatever fucked up nightmare this has to be. 

“I've had about enough of sharing with the incompetent fucking cavemen over the line. Talia didn't make a _truce_ , she conceded and gave a half of the city that was rightly _ours_ to those people -”

“Oh, my God...” he can't be hearing this. He just can't be. 

“...and I think it's just about time we stopped making nice. I want the city,” he leans back again, smug and bored. “I'll take it back through whatever means necessary.” 

Derek paces in front of his desk for another second, before he finally slows to a stop and looks at him, head on. He'd like to say that this isn't the same person that Derek once knew, that this isn't his uncle, his family at all – but of course, he is. He's always been like this. If Derek hadn't been stupid, and a coward, then maybe he would've taken over everything himself and avoided this altogether. “People are going to _die_ ,” he says, because he thinks it means something.

To Peter, it doesn't. “Of course.” He's uninterested entirely. 

“Laura, Lydia, Boyd, Erica, me -”

“Stiles,” Peter offers, voice cruel and mocking, but Derek grits his teeth and decides to ignore it. 

“For _what_? What is any of this about? What does it matter if the Raekens have their own fucking -”

“For power,” he says this like it's so obvious, that Derek is a fucking idiot for not being able to see it right there in front of his face. “If I have my way, there won't be any Raekens left to claim the other half. If I have to lose a few people to get it finished,” he waves his hand, “then so be it. You have to crack an egg to make an omelet.” 

Every single one of them, Stiles included, is just a means to an end. Everything he's done, pretending like he wants Stiles underneath his wing, dealing drugs to hapless, starving teenagers like Stiles so they can idiotically cross the lines and sell it on Raeken territory to incite violence, thrusting his own people over the lines, sending his people to the bridge – all of it has just been to start what he must honest to God think is some sort of holy war. Reclaim the land that the Hales used to dominate, control the entire city from boarder to boarder, from one mountain to the next. 

Naturally this is what he's done. Derek never should've expected anything less. 

“Personally, I can't wait to see how it starts,” he's saying, but Derek is already turning on his heel and walking out, away from him, away from all of this, “you'll want to be there for it, I think.” 

Down the stairs he goes, past all of Peter's minions who would unwittingly follow every single order he gave, out into the fresh air again. He sucks it in like he's been underwater, staggering a bit as the full gravity of every thing that was just said comes crashing over him. 

There's nothing that he can do to stop this. Nevermind the fact that the last time anything like this happened, it was so fucking prolific that the state government was sending in reinforcements over the county lines. Last time, the entire city was about to go into ruins because of an idiotic struggle for who could control which part of this shithole of a city – and that was just dividing it up into sections. Derek can only imagine what'll happen when it's the _entire_ city. 

He's known for a while that it would be bad. He just wasn't sure how bad things could possibly get. It seems like all any of them can do is sit and wait for it to happen. Maybe the smart thing to do would be for Derek to leave. Pack up his stuff, get away from all of this before it gets so terrible that he winds up dead. 

He is, after all, a coward. Running would be the most in character thing for him to do. 

The day is spent from that point onward with Derek in his apartment, nearly jumping out of his skin every time his phone vibrates – he nearly expects a text from Lydia or Erica, telling him that Matt just got shot, or that Laura did, and it's all starting. Even though nothing has changed aside from the fact that Derek knows without a doubt what Peter is up to, he can't help but feel like everything is balancing on the edge of a sword, now. One misstep, one wrong move, and they're all going to get thrown off the edge of the cliff. 

There's nothing he can do about it, except to sit and wait. Last time he was only a kid, so he doesn't remember all the sordid details other than flashes of the news playing on television, and he certainly wasn't expected to actively participate. He won't get away so easy, now. What his role in any of this would be, he doesn't know. He doesn't want to find out. Truth be told, he'd much rather run, and he should, but he knows he just can't do that. 

After an afternoon spent nearly crawling out of his skin, Derek finally makes the decision to at least leave his fucking apartment before he winds up losing his mind. He climbs into his car, and just drives. He drives all along Hale territory, the restaurants lit up, the movie theater flashing its lights across the sidewalk, the shadows of the mountains beyond it all. And all the people, the normal ones, who aren't confined to either half (but are stuck here all the same.) It's only the Hales, the Raekens, and all their pawns who are bound by those infantile lines. Derek wonders what it would be like if he could drive through the other half of the city and not actually fear for his life, but then, that's exactly the kind of thinking that got Peter into his mindset to begin with. So he takes a right at the last turn off before the Kroger's, and heads back into his own half. 

Now, more than ever in his entire life, even more than when Talia died, Derek wishes he had been born as someone else. He wishes he could've left Beacon Hills for college, gotten out of here, and he wishes the same for Erica and Lydia. Laura and Boyd, too. Hell, everyone here. Even Theo. Maybe he wouldn't have turned into what he is now, if he hadn't been born a Raeken in Beacon Hills, the city sectioned off from the rest of the world by mountains and woods deep enough that it's like they have their own island. It's no wonder things are so bad, out here. 

He finally slows to a stop on the side of the road, by the Italian restaurant and the nail salon across the street. Then he just sits there, alone in his car as the sky goes from early summer twilight to dead of night, the only light for miles the artificial stuff buzzing out of streetlights above his head, the clicks of lighters. Nothing, as far as the eye can see. 

Around the time he's lighting his cigarette, he catches sight of Stiles. It's the first time he's seen him in a couple weeks, in person at least. He's walking along, heedless that he's being watched in Derek's rearview mirror, coming toward the car. He's got on that same white t-shirt from when they first met, a new pair of jeans maybe, and a slightly more put together pair of shoes that he probably stole from a bin somewhere. He gets closer and closer to the car, and Derek thinks that he could open up the door and beckon him – and he even more thinks that Stiles would come. In spite of the last time they spoke to one another and everything that happened, Derek still thinks Stiles would come along anyway. Maybe that's wishful thinking. 

But, Stiles keeps walking until he passes by, and Derek lowers himself down in his seat just so Stiles won't catch sight of him. On Stiles goes, clueless, and it doesn't seem like he particularly has any place that he has to be. More likely than not, he's prowling for someone to slow their car down and invite him inside. It's an old feeling of disgust to think of the things Stiles does on the streets, but still it pools inside of Derek the same way it always does, an old friend. 

He pulls a drag from his cigarette and leans back in his seat, waiting for Stiles to go around a corner and vanish out of sight – but he never gets the chance. 

Stiles is meandering past a huge black escalade, a lot like the one that Boyd drives Erica around in when she's doing pick-ups and meet-ups with her dealers, and Derek thinks nothing of it. The door opens right as Stiles is passing in front of it, and again, Derek thinks nothing of it. Stiles takes two more steps, and then a dark figure jumps out of the car, slams the door behind itself, and grabs Stiles by his bony shoulders. 

There's a brief struggle, happening so quickly that Derek barely has time to react, and then Stiles is forcibly being dragged down the alley right alongside the restaurant – even as he tries to dig his heels in, tries to elbow whoever it is in the face, shouts something that's cut off by a hand slapping over his mouth. 

Derek fumbles his cigarette into the footwell in his haste to throw the door open, blood rushing through his body so fast he feels light with it. He leaves it open, running past all the other cars parked along the side of the road, including the black car where Stiles' attacker had emerged from. As an after thought, he tries to peer inside to see if anyone else is waiting, perhaps someone who would shoot him if he tried to stop whoever it is from doing whatever it is they want to Stiles – but the windows are blacked out, and he can't make a figure out either way. 

When he comes around the corner to the alley, it's lit up only by a red and blue neon sign outside the back door of the restaurant, so every thing that's happening there is lit up all hazy, like a dream, or a nightmare. Stiles has got his back up against the brick wall, and Theo Raeken is the one holding him there. Derek blinks once, twice, like he doesn't believe his eyes. 

In the dead center of Hale territory, Theo Raeken has leaped out of a car in the middle of the night to attack a street walker. It almost sounds unlikely to the point of it being funny, but Derek is standing here right now, seeing it with his own two fucking eyes. He's got a knife in his hand, a large one, as is his signature, and he's pressing the blunt edge of it up against Stiles' neck in warning. But Derek knows it's not just a warning. He plans to use it. 

Stiles has a slash across his cheek, dripping an uneven stream of blood down his face, around his mouth, his neck, and it sounds like he's begging. Theo presses the knife harder, Stiles makes a choking sound, using one weak hand to uselessly try and push against Theo's chest – Theo pulls the knife away. Stiles breathes. Derek starts walking. 

His feet crunch along the pebbles and broken class scattered across the alley but neither of them pay him attention. They don't even notice he's coming. 

Theo punches Stiles once, across the face, and then grabs Stiles' chin and tugs his head back to look him in the eyes. Derek is close enough now that he can hear it when Theo says, “it's not like there's anyone left in the whole world to notice you're gone,” to hear Stiles say, “please, _please_ don't -”

There's three seconds. Theo twirling the knife in his fingers, sharp edge facing Stiles' skin. Derek reaching into his holster and pulling his gun out. Derek firing. 

Three seconds, barely longer than the time in between a heartbeat. That's all it takes. 

The bullet manages to hit Theo straight through the neck. Blood splatters across Stiles' face, his shirt, his hair, so immediate that he doesn't have a chance to turn away before he's covered in it. Theo is sputtering as he hits the ground, arms and legs twitching the way that animals do in a trap before finally dying in the middle of the forest. Derek never actually stopped advancing on them, not even when he was firing. It's a good thing he's such a good fucking shot, otherwise he could've missed and hit Stiles just from how quickly he had been walking. He knew he wouldn't – so he's close enough now that Stiles is _right there_ , sucking in great gasping breaths, and Derek is standing over Theo, watching him die. 

It might've been pleasing to stand there for another few seconds listening to him struggle to get breath through the hole in his neck, clawing haplessly at his skin like he actually thinks there's anything that could help him now. Satisfying to watch him suffer through his last seconds on earth.

Instead, Derek raises his gun and fires another shot through his head, eliciting a shocked shout from Stiles beside him. Theo's body goes still, and he's dead. Derek killed him.

It's not as all-encompassing a thought as he always imagined it would be. No, he's never killed anyone before, but he's had thoughts, like everyone else in this business does. He knew one day it might come down to this, but it's just that he always thought that it would be more. He thought he would feel something, regret, guilt, terror, _something_. 

This was the right thing to do. In a court of law, he could have it written off as self defense, insist that he was protecting a skinny, starving seventeen year old from being sliced open in a back alley in one of the worst cities in the United States. 

But in his world, things like this aren't settled in courts. He feels nothing, not a fucking thing, and he turns to Stiles, who's standing there with his eyes huge in his blood-splattered face, hands shaking. Derek fits his gun back against his hip, and approaches him – just a single step, but it's like he's just fired another shot, judging from how Stiles reacts. 

Stiles puts his hands up as though he plans on using them to defend himself. He edges his way down the brick wall of the alley, away from Derek, away from the body pooling blood and brain matter all over the concrete, and hisses, “don't touch me.” 

“Stiles,” Derek starts. Stiles pushes his body against the furthermost wall, right next to the dumpster filled with black garbage bags tied, and squats down. He presses his face into his knees as he slowly rocks himself back and forth, tiny distressed sounds making their way out of his throat, probably without his knowledge. Derek walks closer to him again, holding his hands out towards him to try and pull him up, and Stiles jerks into the corner. 

“ _Don't touch me_ ,” he yells, his voice echoing off the high walls of the buildings boxing them in. “Get away from me, _stop it_ , stop, stop, stop -”

Derek grabs his arms and tries to hold them steady, narrowly avoiding getting a bony fist in his jaw. He holds Stiles' wrists, tries to look him in the eyes, but Stiles' won't _focus_ – they keep darting all over the place, at the body, at his feet, at Derek, at the walls. “You're going into shock,” he says, eerily calm for all that just happened. He figures he has to be, at least for Stiles' sake. “Stiles, breathe. _Stiles_.” 

Stiles does breathe. He sucks in wet, choppy breaths, one after the other, but none of it seems to be helping him – he just keeps breathing so hard it's like he's _not_ , at all. His hands come up to wipe at his face, and one comes down within his eye sight. He looks at the blood there, and it must still be warm where it's sitting on his face and fingers, and then he starts to shake. 

“It's fine,” Derek says, kneeling down to get right in front of his eyes. Stiles looks from him to the blood on his hand, again and again, entire body quaking as tears finally start to spill out from the corners of his eyes. “Hey, you're okay, it's over -”

“I -” he starts, and then has another brief spasm of breaths, “I hate – I hate this, I _hate this_ , I can't – I can't -” 

They have to leave. Stiles is working himself into a panic attack, and there's a dead fucking body five feet away from them – they don't have time. But Stiles keeps muttering the same things over and over under his breath, quietly enough that Derek can't understand him, tears streaming down his face, the salt mixing with the metallic blood. 

Sirens go off somewhere, a few blocks away. Someone heard the gunshots and called the police, because that's what people do, even in a place like this. It's annoying, all the same. “We have to go,” he tells Stiles, who just shakes his head fervently again and again and tries to mold himself into the wall, like he could vanish, there. Like he could push himself through the solid bricks, and get to the other side, where his family is waiting for him, where things like this don't happen, where he's just a kid, again. Derek wishes he could do that, for him. 

That place doesn't exist. He's here, and this is his life, and Derek has to get him out of here, now, _now_ , so he grabs him. 

Stiles struggles. Shoving at Derek's shoulders and kicking his legs and elbowing Derek in the face, but he's having such a hard time breathing that he can barely even yell at Derek to stop. It doesn't matter. Derek collects him, pulls his body up against his own chest in spite of all of Stiles' protests, and drags him out of the alley. Stiles' feet skid over a hefty pool of Theo's blood, so his sneakers are covered with it, and he starts to wretch, vomiting stomach acids over the crook of Derek's arm. 

Derek keeps going as the sirens get louder. They make it out into the open city, sloshing through puddles, to find that the black car that had dropped Theo here is gone, like it was never there at all. Across the street, however, Lydia's blue car is parked, and they make eye contact through her windshield. 

Her face is ashen pale, all the blood drained clear out of it – she looks like she's seen a ghost. They stare at each other, and stare, and finally, Lydia nods, once. What that means, Derek doesn't have the time to fathom. 

He's killed the leader of the opposing regime. He's gone ahead and started what Peter has been trying to get them all to start for months, but he can't think about that. He still has Stiles in his arms, and the sirens edge closer and closer, and there's no time. He hefts Stiles, whose finally managed to come down from his attack long enough to just be crying hysterically instead of being barely cognizant, jerkily down the sidewalk until they reach Derek's parked car. 

Derek manages to dump Stiles in the backseat as gently as possible, and he curls up there in the leather seat, all the way in on himself. Legs pulled up, face in his knees, arms wrapped around himself so tight it's as though he's trying to make himself disappear. Derek closes the door and gets in on his own side, drives them away – in the rear view mirror, he sees the police lights flashing across the block, right before he turns the corner and disappears down another street.


	5. Chapter 5

Throughout the drive, Stiles is mostly silent aside from his panicked sniffling and crying, but Derek is stone-faced. There are a dozen, if not more, parts of this entire event that he has to focus on, and he can't pick one, so he just pays attention to the road and devotes all of his mental energy on getting them back in one piece. When it comes time for them to get out in the parking garage, Stiles doesn't protest. He comes out and lets Derek wrap his arm around his shoulders, lets himself be guided to the elevator, and then he stands there underneath Derek's hold and says nothing. 

When the body guard outside of Derek's door sees them, he does a brief once over of Stiles, all the blood and the crying and the general state of him, and his facial expression doesn't change. He just nods to Derek as they go inside, and then it's just Stiles and Derek alone, away from the world. 

Derek switches on the lights, and Stiles looks eerie standing there like he is. His hair is a mess, sticking up in every which way, and his shoe laces are completely soaked in blood. He'll have to throw those out. It's a small miracle that he didn't track blood all throughout the garage and the apartment building. He stands for a moment, hugging his arms close to himself, staring blankly down at the floor like he's not even really seeing it. 

“Let's clean you up,” Derek says as gently as he can, though he's not very much for being _gentle_ , so it comes out more gruff than he intends. Stiles doesn't fight this, either. He hazily looks in Derek's general direction and then nods, once. 

With a light sigh, Derek pulls him by the arm towards the bathroom down the hall, bending down to start the tap and then holding his hand out under the shower spray as he waits for it to get warm. 

“Okay,” he says as soon as the water runs hot enough to be acceptable. He turns and gestures to Stiles, up and down, indicating his clothes. “Why don't you pile those up, and I'll -”

Stiles pushes him aside without a word and climbs into the shower, clothes and shoes and all, standing there underneath the stream almost like a zombie. The white shirt he has on goes translucent with the weight of the water, so Derek can just barely make out the outline of a black tattoo lining his chest – but he can't tell what it is, other than it's fairly large. Stiles lifts his hands and scrubs hard at his face, until the water runs pink down the drain, and then he goes to his neck, his arms, every single part of him, even the parts that none of Theo's blood came into contact with. Derek clears his throat, and doesn't know what to say or do. He just hovers off to the side, silent. 

Stiles must stand there in the shower for ten entire minutes, not moving, before Derek finally reaches over and switches the water off. “Okay,” he says in a low voice, “that's probably good enough.” 

Derek fishes a towel out of the stack of clean ones below the sink and hands it to Stiles, who takes it and immediately rubs it into his hair, sending droplets of water across the tiled floors as he does so. He dries his face off and then he pauses, sniffling, before meeting Derek's eyes. 

“What's going to happen?” He asks, voice cracked and raw. 

Nothing good. Derek doesn't regret it, not at all, because someone had to do it eventually – it's just that never in his wildest imaginations did he think that it would be _him_. And never in Stiles' defense, never in the defense of a kid like him. “It doesn't matter,” he says in lieu of a real answer – because of course it _matters_ , and Derek is full of shit. Stiles doesn't call him out on it. He steps out of the shower, his shoes squelching with the amount of water built up inside of them on the bath mat. Derek stops him from walking any farther with a hand on his chest, pointing down to the shoes. “Take those off.” 

Stiles does what he's asked, bending down and undoing the bloodstained soggy laces in mute silence. He hands them to Derek when he's done, and the water drips down Derek's arms, gathering in the crook of his elbow to itch at the skin there. 

“You'll stay here tonight.” He's been in situations with Stiles before where he's tried to boss him around for his own good, and Stiles generally has never responded very well. But, tonight, there's no indignance, no argument. He just nods once, lips a grim line, and Derek has nothing else to say. 

They go down the hall, Stiles dripping all over the floors in his wet clothes, to the barely if ever used guest room. There's never before used sheets on the bed, fluffy pillows, extra blankets, and a window looking down at the city, glowing, but other than that, the room is bare. Still, it's the nicest place Stiles has stayed in a while, Derek knows. Maybe not the best circumstances. But beggars can't be choosers. 

He leaves Stiles alone for a minute to grab some old sweatpants and a soft cotton shirt from the back of his closet, and when he comes back, Stiles is still standing in the exact some spot Derek had left him in. Hovering right inside the door, staring at the bed, face blank and pale. The cut on his face isn't too bad – shallow. It doesn't even need a band-aid. But it sticks out bright and stark against the pale skin of his face, missing a beauty mark by only a centimeter. 

“Here,” Derek says awkwardly, holding out the clothes. Stiles takes them and hugs them close to his chest, which gets them a little wet, but he doesn't seem to care. “You can just – go to sleep.”

“Okay.” He says it like he has no plans of sleeping, none at all, but it isn't like he has anywhere else in the world left to go. They're a couple of miles away from his usual haunts, and there's no way in hell he's walking anywhere, so he's stuck here in a certifiable tower over the city, with Derek. 

He walks and puts the clothes down on the bed, and then sits himself down on the edge of it. He bends his neck, staring at his hands on his lap, and then he shakes his head. A ghost of a smile crosses his face, a bitter twist to his mouth that has no real amusement or positive emotion written anywhere in it. “Today was my birthday.” 

Derek freezes where he is, about to close the door to give Stiles some privacy. He blinks at the side of Stiles' face, remembering when Peter had coaxed it out of him that Stiles' birthday was coming up in a little under a month – Jesus, has it been a month already? 

On Derek's eighteenth birthday, his mother bought him a new car to add to his collection, and he had a party at Pacers with hundreds of other people, and then he came home at six in the morning and slept the rest of the day away. He swallows, thinking of the contrasts between the two of them, and tips his head. 

“Happy birthday,” he says, and Stiles puts his head in his hands. Derek's not good at comfort, he's never been good at that, and especially not in the wake of something like this. Stiles needs someone right now, but the best Derek can do is clean him up, give him warm clothes and a warm bed, and help him get through the night in one piece. 

He closes the door, and walks down the hallway. He keeps walking until he's at the wide glass doors that slide open, and then he steps onto the balcony in the early summer night air. 

He lights a cigarette and leans over the railing, dangling himself over the expanse of the city lights. Off in the distance, he can barely make out the flashing of red and blue, dots on the horizon. By morning, everyone will know that Theo Raeken has been killed on Hale territory, and then it's only a matter of time until anyone who actually matters, cops not included, finds out that it was Derek who did it. 

Taking another drag, he has an intrusive memory of watching Theo's brain matter splatter across the concrete, and he grimaces, rubbing his forehead. When it was happening, it was like someone else was doing it – playing a video game, where it's never real – but now, alone with himself and what he's done, he has to face it head on. 

Of all the people to kill, Theo is one that carries the least amount of real guilt with it. The fucker deserved it. But it's still a person, and a life, and Derek took it. He guesses it's how the world works, but that doesn't make it any easier. Stiles is still alive because of what he did – tit for tat, an eye for an eye. 

Fuck it. He can't get his thoughts straight about any of it. His mind goes in circles for the entire ten minutes he stands out there, watching headlights pass over the hills, and then he stabs his cigarette out in the ashtray and goes back inside. 

It's silent, like it usually is, but silence when there's another person here is eerier than it is when he's alone, so he ducks into his bedroom and closes the door where the silence is comfortable. 

He's halfway through undressing, sliding his belt off through the loops in his pants, when his phone starts buzzing incessantly in his pocket. The caller ID is a Beacon Hills area code, but a number he doesn't recognize. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, knowing that answering a call after he just shot and killed someone could potentially be a fucking mistake, but then he swears under his breath and answers it anyway. 

“Have you seen Stiles?” It's Scott, without a doubt. The frantic tilt to his voice on the other end of the phone says it all, even if Derek can't necessarily recognize it. 

“Scott -”

“He gave me this number in case of an emergency, like a real one, because the cops never do shit -”

“It's -”

“- and he said that you would help if something came up, and he was supposed to come to the bar for his birthday, but he never showed up, and it's getting really late and he's still not here, and no one around here has seen him either, and -”

“Stiles is fine,” Derek cuts him off, sitting down on the edge of his bed with his pants unbuttoned. 

There's a pause. “You know where he is? You've seen him? Where is he?” 

Derek considers his next words very carefully, trying to think of the best way to say this without giving Scott the wrong impression. But he knows that there's no way to phrase this that doesn't sound bad, so he just comes right out with it. “Stiles is at my place.” 

There's no pause, this time. It's like Scott doesn't even fully consider what's been said to him before he's spitting out, “you _motherfucking_ piece of literal garbage, I should -”

“Not like _that_ ,” Derek hisses, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It's not – something came up -”

“He wouldn't miss this for just anything,” Scott insists on the other end. “What, are you paying him extra?”

“It's _not. Like. That_.” Derek needs to drill that idea home and solidify it. The last thing he wants is for Scott, in particular, to think that he's taken his best friend home to coerce him into sex. “Listen, Scott, can you – can you keep something to yourself?” 

“Like a secret?” He sounds dubious.

“Yes, like a secret. Something just between us, no matter what anyone asks you.” 

There's a long breath, Scott sighing like he knows what's coming. “This is, like, a mafia thing isn't it?” 

“Yes.” 

“I can be quiet about things,” he says, and Derek doesn't necessarily believe that, but it's not like he has any other choices. 

“Something bad happened tonight,” he looks at his hand, turns it back and forth in his lap. “And for your own safety, I can't say anything else, but Stiles is here, because something bad happened. I'm not going to touch him. You can trust me.” 

“Something bad,” Scott's voice repeats. “What is that supposed to mean?”

A dozen possibilities must be springing to Scott's head, all the different things that are bad, especially associated with the Hales, and his imagination must be running rampant with all the options. “You'll find out in the morning.” Everyone will. 

Scott clucks his tongue. “I guess I have no choice but to believe you,” he says, sounding tired and upset. “And, Stiles did give me your number. I guess he trusts you, too.” 

Something warm settles in Derek's chest at the thought of that, of Derek being the person whose number that Stiles gave to his best friend in case of an emergency, like he trusts Derek almost as much as he trusts this kid who he's known maybe for his entire life. “I guess he does.” 

“Okay...well. If he's all right, then...” 

“He'll be fine,” Derek says, not knowing how true that'll turn out to be. 

“I'll let you go then. By the way, I put your name in as _Dave_ in my phone, so no one will know it's you.” 

Derek pauses, palms his forehead. Jesus Christ. “Thanks for your discretion,” he says, biting his lip to keep from snorting. 

“No problem.” The line goes dead, and Derek drops his phone onto the bed beside him. 

The next morning, Derek doesn't know what to expect from Stiles. Truthfully, he thinks he might wander into the guest bedroom to find the bed unmade, and Stiles long gone already. It would seem just his style to vanish without a word, or even a note left on the kitchen table. 

Instead, he comes out into the main room half asleep to see Stiles standing in the kitchen, eating a bowl of cereal, staring at something on the refridgerator. The box of lucky charms is sitting on the island, and all the cabinet doors are thrown wide open, likely from Stiles' hunt to locate the bowls and silverware. He's wearing the clothes that Derek gave to him, the sweatpants hanging low on his hips, and his hair at least looks like he made some attempts at lying down to get some sleep. 

As Derek approaches, he sees that it's the front page newspaper clipping from when Talia died that Stiles is so transfixed with. Stiles turns his head at Derek's footsteps, mouth crunching over the cereal, and then he points his spoon at the picture of Talia right in front of him. “This seems dark,” he says, tone unreadable. 

Derek leans his hip against the counter a couple of feet away from Stiles, crossing his arms over his chest. “We don't really shy away from death in the family.” 

“Even the constant reminders?” He turns back to the page, frowning intensely as though it personally offends him. He scrutinizes it, the entire thing, from the picture of Talia, to the one right next to it of the former Sheriff who died that same night. 

“We don't mind the reminders, either.” When death isn't just something that happens, and happens young, but is _expected_ to happen on any given day of the week, you learn to sort of get used to it. Granted, no one ever gets fully used to it, but they still like to pretend like they're all hardened street criminals that never bat an eyelash. 

Stiles says nothing to that. He chews some more, poking his spoon around the few grain shapes still wandering around in the last of his milk. “I hope you don't mind about the cereal,” he says after a moment, turning his back on the fridge, “I figured you wouldn't.”

“I don't.” 

“Cool.” 

“If you had waited for me to wake up, I could've made you an actual breakfast.” 

“Yeah. I don't really get to eat a lot of lucky charms, though,” he brings the bowl up to his lips and drinks the pink, sugary milk right out of it. When he pulls the bowl back, there's a bit of it dribbling down his chin that he wipes away with the back of his hand. “Do you want some?” 

Even though it's been an entire eighteen hours since the last time Derek ate anything, he doesn't think he could stomach it this early, after everything that happened last night. The only reason Stiles is able to eat a single thing is because it's possible he hasn't eaten in even longer than Derek hasn't, and even then, it was probably a ninety-nine cent bag of chips from a vending machine somewhere. “No, thanks.” 

“Okay.” 

They stand in relatively uncomfortable silence, Stiles dumping his bowl into the sink and then crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at the floor. Derek knows they're going to have to address the elephant in the room at some point, but he's loathe to bring it up himself, and something tells him Stiles isn't exactly going to be getting the megaphone out to start yelling about it either. So, for now, he figures they can pretend for a little longer that nothing happened last night. “Wanna watch some television?” 

“Fuck yeah,” Stiles agrees, nodding enthusiastically if not with any real happiness associated with it. “I haven't watched anything that wasn't the bottom twelve cable provided shit in, like, _months_. Do you have Netflix?” 

“And Hulu.” 

“Wow,” Stiles draws the word out long as they walk around the island to the living room. “High class living.” He throws himself onto the couch and shifts around a bit, making himself comfortable. As Derek is fumbling around for the remote, Stiles picks a tiny shard of what looks like colored paper out from in between one of the pillows and examines it closely, tilting his head to the side. “Is this...?”

Derek looks at him, and sees that it's one of the pieces of the card Peter had given him, the same one that Derek had gone and ripped apart. He blushes, humiliated by this for some reason, and looks away to focus on hitting the power button on the remote. “Yeah, let's – not talk about that.” 

The television powers on, and of course, the first thing that comes up on the screen is the local news – displaying a blonde woman talking on top of a banner that reads _THEO RAEKEN SHOT AND KILLED OUTSIDE OF RESTAURANT IN DOWNTOWN BEACON HILLS_ in large white letters. As the sound slowly comes in, she's talking about, of course, exactly that. 

“I guess we have to talk about _that_ ,” Stiles drawls, pointing a finger at the television and scowling a bit. 

Yes, it did seem inevitable. Still, Derek sighs and rubs his forehead before sitting down on the couch next to Stiles, sinking into the cushions and wishing he could melt into them and vanish. 

“...Theo Raeken was in what's long been known underground as _Hale territory_ ,” the television says, and Derek has to hold back the eye roll, “...and -”

“That was _Theo Raeken_?” 

Derek looks at Stiles, and sits back up all the way. He stares at his face for a second, looking for any hints of a joke or a game or a _lie_ , even, but his face is just blank faced, eyes wide, genuine shock written all over it. “You didn't know that?” 

“No, I didn't -” he trails off, swallowing as he looks back to the picture they've put up of Theo on the screen – it's the same one they've been using for years, ever since he first came into power after the bodies of his family were found all cut up in the woods somewhere. “...I did not fucking know that. Holy fucking shit. You killed Theo Raeken.” 

As if to finish his thought entirely, the newswoman continues. “...bullet that killed him has the crest of the Hale family engraved on the side, indicating that the perpetrator was likely a member of the opposing Hale gang. Police officials believe this could potentially lead to the first massive blow-up between the two groups since 1995, before Talia Hale managed to bring them to -”

“Holy shit,” Stiles moans, covering his face with his hands. “I started a gang war.” 

“You didn't start anything,” Derek hisses, clicking the television off with finality, watching as the newswoman disappears into a cloud of black. “Theo started it by showing up on Hale territory to murder someone on our own fucking land.” 

Stiles peaks through the cracks in his fingers. “I can't believe that was him. Why would he want to – kill me? I've never even met him.” 

Frankly, Derek has been wondering that exact same thing himself. Theo didn't come into Hale territory, happen upon a random street kid, and decide to just murder him for no fucking reason. He came here with intent, looked for Stiles specifically, and tracked him down. For what reason, Derek can only guess at. The most likely answer is that he wanted to antagonize Derek, leaving his signature all over the body by using that fucking knife of his, to do exactly what Peter's been trying to do.

In a way, his plan worked out. It's just a shame that Theo's not around to see it for himself. 

“Don't worry about that,” Derek tells him, and Stiles gives him a very angry look. 

“I'm already fucking _worrying_ about it,” Stiles gestures to the television, even with its black and empty screen, “someone tried to kill me last night. I had to watch you kill someone with my own two eyes. I had their blood all over me. You think this, what? Doesn't _concern_ me?”

As usual, Stiles is frustrating. Stiles is fucking annoying. Derek had forgotten about that in their time apart, but seeing it now, that fucking indignant facial expression, Derek can't imagine how he ever could've let this slip his memory. “You have put yourself into the middle of something -”

“I didn't do shit,” he defends, holding his hands up in the air in the universal sign of innocence. “You're the one who got me all sucked into this fuckdom. I was just turning tricks, before. Now I get to deal with the fact that someone died practically because of me -”

“He would've killed you if I hadn't killed him,” Derek cuts him off, turning his body on the couch to face Stiles head on, “you realize that.” 

Stiles looks away, clenching his jaw together. His cheeks turn red, whether in shame or anger Derek isn't sure yet – maybe both. When he looks back to meet Derek's eyes, his brow is furrowed. “Why do you give a shit?” 

“What?” 

“Why would you fucking care if I got killed? What does it even matter to you?”

This question again. For the dozenth time, _this fucking question again_. Derek is long past the point where he tries to even think of any kind of an answer – he just says the very first thing that comes to mind. “It matters to me. That's it.” 

Stiles looks petulant and angry still, but he doesn't say anything else to argue the point. He just stares at his fingers and mutters expletives under his breath – but Derek figures it's better than him going half catatonic, like he did last night, so it's still a win. “Do you really think there's going to be like – a war?” 

“Yes,” Derek nods without any hesitation. That's a question he doesn't have to think too hard on at all. “Not to scare you, but it's the truth. It'd have been one thing if it were a random goon he sent over – but Theo came himself, and now he's dead. No one responds very kindly to having their leader shot and killed.” 

“So, they're going to...?” 

“The lines between the groups are going to break down. They'll come here, and we'll go there, and there'll be violence. Beyond that, the rest is just needless details.” 

Stiles covers his face with his hands again. “To think I was just trying to get an illegal beer and instead I blew the city up.” 

Derek can't help it – he laughs. Stiles doesn't, just stays glued there in that spot, more or less despondent, but Derek thinks it's funny. Maybe not in the specific sense in context, but out of context? Stiles inadvertently starting a gang war just because he happened to walk on the wrong street at the wrong time while trying to go get an illegal drink from his best friend...it's just funny, because of course something like this would happen to Stiles. 

After enough time has passed, Stiles unmoving, Derek tentatively reaches over and pats him on the shoulder. “Let's not talk about this anymore.”

“What else are we supposed to talk about?” He asks, voice muffled and small. To Stiles, something like this might just be the end of the world as he knows it – fuck, to all of them it might literally be that, how things are panning out. There's nothing else to think about, nothing else to care about; the only thing going on behind his eyelids every time he closes them is Theo's dead body lying in that back alley. 

“I'll take you out to lunch,” Derek says, moving to stand from the couch. 

Stiles sits back up, and at least he's not crying. He doesn't look very happy, either, which is to be expected. He looks Derek in the face, mouth curved down into a frown, and then narrows his eyes. “You killed someone last night, and now you want to just – go out to lunch?” 

As for Derek, he's lived long enough in his position that he's learned to close his eyes and see nothing, nothing at all. “You said it was your birthday.” 

“Whatever.” He scratches at the knee of his sweatpants, pretending there's a loose thread there for him to pick at, when there isn't, just for something to do with his hands. “My birthday hasn't exactly been anything to look forward to, these past couple years, so it's like – just, whatever.” 

His birthday last year was hopefully at least not spent on the streets, was hopefully just someplace dry and warm, and the one before that, Derek can only imagine. Seeing as how Derek is a little part of the reason this birthday as well has been an utter and complete nightmare for Stiles, he figures he should at least do _something_ to make everything seem a little less fucking bleak. “We'll go out,” he says, not leaving any room for argument. 

Stiles just glowers and nods his head, dropping the sarcastic commentary for once in his life. “Except, I don't have any shoes.” In testament to this, he points at his bare feet resting on the carpet, and then he quickly tucks his hands into his lap and looks away, leaving Derek staring at the profile of his face. He seems a little ashamed. 

“What size do you wear?” 

“Ten and a half.” 

“That's fine,” Derek says, “I'm a size eleven.” 

“That's -”

“You'll survive,” he vanishes down the hallway before Stiles can protest any more than that. It has to be for the best if Derek doesn't just let Stiles sit in his apartment all day, soaking in misery and guilt and whatever other emotions he can wrangle out of this situation. Not to mention the fact that watching the television will only make the entire thing worse. Derek knows they're running a day long BREAKING NEWS cycle, going over every last detail of what the cops know (nothing), what eyewitnesses know (nothing), and what new developments are arising ( _nothing_.) 

At least, nothing yet. The last thing that Stiles needs is to be inundated with that garbage. 

Derek lends him a pair of his shoes, which Stiles frowns about but grudgingly goes along with – looking a little silly in the too-big sweatpants and shirt and sneakers. Derek doesn't plan on taking him anywhere particularly fancy, so he calls it good and shepherds him out the door. 

The last time that Stiles was sitting in Derek's car, he was eating a Big Mac and half-offering to suck Derek off for twenty dollars, fresh off a stint in a holding cell at Beacon County Sheriff's department. Derek can't decide if that scenario was any more ridiculous than this one is – driving down Main Street with a more subdued, pensive Stiles in sweatpants and a frown. The radio is silent, because Derek is too nervous to turn it on in the event that someone on NPR is yelling about how the last of the actual Raeken blood line has been killed off, so the car itself is silent as well. Derek's not one for starting conversations, and Stiles seems loathe to start anything himself with how he's feeling, so the quiet settles over them like a pall. 

When Derek pulls into the Applebee's parking lot, Stiles actually snorts a little, smirking. 

“What?” Derek asks, smiling only because Stiles is. 

Stiles looks at him, and then back to the restaurant, all the garish reds and greens and yellows over the awnings and decorations. “This place?” He says it like he honestly cannot fucking believe it. 

“Is there something wrong with Applebee's?” 

“No, no way,” he unbuckles his seatbelt, still smiling. “It's just – I haven't been since I was a kid.” 

Derek bites back the obligatory _you're still a kid_ , comment – mostly because he really isn't anymore. He's legally an adult now, since he's just turned eighteen years old. Most kids think freedom, the power to vote, even cigarettes – for Stiles, it might just be the opposite for the most part. All Derek can think about that in relation to Stiles is that he can be charged as an adult for anything they could drag him in for, wind up going to actual federal prison instead of a juvenile detention center. 

Once they're seated across from each other at a booth, Stiles opens up the menu and rests his cheek against his knuckles, elbow on the table, legs sprawled out underneath the table so they're almost touching Derek's. This doesn't seem to bother Stiles in the least bit, not even when they keep knocking knees or sliding their calves against one another. 

Even if Stiles could give a fuck, there's still a part of Derek that views Stiles as wholly untouchable outside the realm of saving his life or keeping him from making a stupid fucking decision. The idea of touching him just to _touch him_ is taboo, even now. Eighteen he might be, but Derek is hyperaware that any lingering touches between the two of them could be read as an attempt at a come-on, and Stiles has learned to read come-ons exclusively as the precursor to business transactions. 

All the same, no matter how many times Derek tries to maneuver himself out of the trajectory of Stiles' octopus legs, he still winds up getting kicked and poked over and over again, because Stiles apparently finds it physically impossible to sit the fuck still. He orders a soda and uses the straw to repeatedly jab at his ice, splashing droplets of the stuff across Derek's menu and silverware bundle, while Derek sips at his water straight from the glass and tries to think of a topic of conversation. 

The only thing Derek and Stiles have in common is, cheesy as it sounds, a life of crime and doing their level best to stay under the radar. Now, that includes a shared secret of homicide. Neither of these are things that they can discuss at length in a family style chain restaurant, so since _how's whoring yourself out going?_ is beyond out of the question, Derek has to get creative. 

Problem is, he has no idea where to start. He doesn't truly _know_ Stiles, though he might have a lock on certain extremely personal details. But everything else about him, maybe the things that actually matter and make up his personality, Derek's got no idea of.

He's literally about to open up the floor with _what's your favorite color,_ but thankfully for the both of them, Stiles saves them from that fucking disaster. He cocks his head to the side, slurping at his Sprite, and then he smiles with all his teeth – the first time Derek has seen that kind of a grin from Stiles in a while. “I like this song,” he says, and then he goes quiet as he listens to it for another few seconds. “I don't get to listen to a lot of music, you know? Unless it's just on somewhere, like in here, or the laundromat. I used to have a...” he trails off, scratching at his cheek. “...a lot of music.” 

Derek drops his water glass on the table and shifts a bit to lean closer over the table, interested. “Do you play anything?” 

In the most unique display Stiles has ever given Derek yet, he actually looks bashful. Not embarrassed or ashamed or scared, but just shy. “Guitar. A little.” 

The way he says _a little_ suggests something more along the lines of _a lot, constantly, all the time_ – but of course, that's past tense. Derek forgets, sometimes, that Stiles used to have an actual life, instead of the mockery of the one he's living now. He used to have a bedroom, and a guitar, and a laptop with a full iTunes library, a mother and a father. Now, he's got the clothes on his back and some lighters, luxuries like being able to sit and listen to music unfathomable to him. 

“What about you? You play anything?” Stiles quickly changes the path of the conversation, and Derek lets him. 

“No,” he shakes his head, “that's not really my thing.” 

“What is your thing?” 

Derek is about to say that he likes the shooting range, but that might bring the mood of the conversation down – a reminder of the reason they're running from their problems at a fucking Applebee's to begin with. He thinks for a second, and all he can come up with is partying, drinking, but there has to be more to his life than that. There _has_ to be. 

Nothing comes to him, though. It's funny how much time he's spent thinking Stiles' life is so empty and depressing, while he's one to talk, when push comes to shove. 

“I like reading,” Derek blurts out. Everyone does, on some level, so it feels like a cop-out answer, but Stiles raises his eyebrows and nods. 

“Same. The library is a warm place to hang out in the winter time, so I spend most of Christmas there. The librarians give me hot chocolate.” 

“It's funny how _that_ sounds like a more enjoyable Christmas than the ones I've had with my family.” 

Stiles laughs, slapping his hand over his mouth. Derek doesn't get how it's that fucking funny, but Stiles keeps laughing for another second or two, like it's the funniest thing anyone's ever said. “I'm so shocked that Christmases with Uncle Pete aren't the best things ever,” he drawls over a few remaining snickers, rolling his eyes. 

Peter has always been more than half the reason that Christmas sucks so bad, especially ever since Talia died. He's spent the last two getting ridiculously fucking drunk and yelling at everyone at the dinner table over the roast duck about _his empire_ and _the family name_ – so, really, the same as any other day, but on Christmas, it feels particularly bleak. 

“Maybe this year you should come to the fuckin' library with me on Christmas Eve,” he jokes, raising one eyebrow, “get in on the hot chocolate and stale cookies action. Sometimes Santa comes. I know you can't resist that.” 

“Right. How could I say no?” Derek smiles at him, and Stiles smiles back. 

The food comes, and Stiles tears into his bacon cheeseburger like a wild animal – he cites something about not having had bacon in, like, _ever_ , in between bites, and then mostly just focuses on his food with tunnel vision, like Derek isn't even there. He gets dribbles of grease down his chin and wipes them away with as much decorum as he ever has, so it's like his _napkin_ isn't even there, either. 

“I can't believe you got a salad when there was a bacon burger on the menu,” Stiles says, sopping up a mound of ketchup onto a fry. “Salads are for rabbits. That's what my dad used to say.” 

It's the first time Stiles has ever said anything about either his father or mother – he doesn't sound like he's about to burst into hysterical tears as he says it, and he keeps right on eating as though it's nothing to him. Scott had said it's been about two years since the death of his father, and that's a long time to spend grieving over someone. He wouldn't say that Stiles is over it, because you don't ever really get over it, but he's at least gotten to the point where bringing him up in casual conversation isn't like reliving everything all over again. 

After the food is gone, Stiles starts twisting his napkin over and over again in specific segments until it rips apart in his fingers – he piles the sections on top of his empty plate, one after the other. If Derek had to guess, he'd say it's more busy work thing than it is anything else. Just something to keep his mind occupied so that he doesn't have to think about anything else. Stiles must have dozens of these little rituals, depending on the context he's dumped in, one of those certainly being the shuffle of his cards. 

He keeps glancing at Derek, as though he's wondering why they haven't left already – but it's as though he doesn't want to leave the sanctity of the restaurant, because he doesn't say anything or ask Derek to get the check. He just sits and rips his napkin up, sips the last of his soda as the ice melts in the bottom of his cup.

Keeping his eyes on Stiles' fingers as they work, Derek asks, “what's that tattoo on your chest of?” 

Stiles slides his eyes up to Derek's, a bemused smile on his face. “How do you know I have a tattoo?”

The question hangs there in the air. Derek doesn't much feel like telling the story of how he saw it through Stiles' soaked t-shirt last night while he was delirious after being nearly cut into pieces, and Stiles eventually blinks and clears his throat, getting the point from the silence. “It's my street ink.” 

“Christ.” So, a _get a serious disease and die from a rusty needle_ type of a thing. Again, Derek is amazed that Stiles has made it this far. 

“It's of the mountains,” he points a long finger out the window, toward where the southern end of the city sits, the mountains in question rising up behind a few tall buildings. “You wanna see it?” 

Derek glances around at the nearly full restaurant they're sitting in. “I don't think -”

All the same, Stiles pulls his shirt up without hesitation, putting his bare chest and the black ink across his rib cage on full display for anyone to see. It's as large as Derek had thought it was just seeing it through the fabric of Stiles' shirt, and also insanely detailed when considering a random street kid had been the one to do it with very little materials to work with. Derek glares at it with his brow furrowed, and then glances toward the mountains themselves through the window pane. It's an eerily exact replica whittled down into simple lines and shadows. “Why this?” Derek asks, leaning back in his seat. For him, he'd sooner chew his own wrists off than get anything, any single part of this shithole, tattooed permanently on his body. It's unfathomable why anyone else, Stiles especially with everything this city has done to him, would. 

Stiles shrugs, pulling his shirt back down and ignoring the looks people shoot him. “Why anything?” It's as close to an answer as Derek is likely to get. 

Finally, after five minutes of casual back and forth conversation and Stiles doing that annoying thing with his straw again, the waitress appears with a handful of the rest of the staff, and dumps a slice of triple chocolate cake down in front of Stiles. Stiles blinks at it, baffled, then to the people surrounding their table, and Derek can't help from smirking. There is no such thing as an innocent bathroom break in a restaurant like this during birthday meals. Stiles should know. Very, very begrudgingly in a chorus of monotone voices, the waiters begin their humiliating, rehearsed birthday song – and Stiles gets this look on his face. 

It's a cross between abject and utter mortification, a desire to reach across the table to punch Derek in the nose, and genuine glee. It's one of the most complicated emotions he's ever seen a human face manage, but Stiles does, in flying colors. He shoots a heated glare in Derek's direction, his face turns beat red, and he grins down into the cake like he can't stand to even acknowledge that this is happening to him. 

He's never looked more like a normal young adult in all the time that Derek has known him. For just a fraction in time, one tiny little window in the messed up nightmare that is their lives, Stiles is any other eighteen year old on his birthday, and Derek is any other one of his friends. It doesn't last long, and even in spite of how embarrassing this ultimately is for the both of them, Derek finds himself wishing he could drag it out for longer. 

Once the torment has ended and the wait staff slowly files off back to their own individual table, their own waitress slapping the bill down with a vindictive glint in her eyes for having been made to do the single worst part of her job, Stiles throws an ice cube across the table in Derek's general direction. 

“I can't believe you did that to me,” he hisses, his face splotchy and red - but he's still grinning from ear to ear. He picks up his fork and slices into the cake, stuffing it into his mouth and immediately starting in on another bite. “Everyone knows how much of a betrayal it is to drag the restaurant birthday song out -” 

“You can do it to me on my birthday, too,” Derek tells him, and Stiles points his fork across the table at him, eyebrows raised. 

“I literally motherfucking will, you shit. Don't think I'll forget. I have a particular affinity for remembering my revenge plots.” 

“Then, it's a deal.” 

“Yes, it sure is.” 

Derek watches him inhale that cake in under ten forkfuls, and then watches as he runs his finger all along the plate to collect the chocolate syrup they had drizzled over the top of it in a zig zag formation. He looks happier than he has since Derek first met him, just from having someone he still only hardly knows (though maybe Derek can't say that anymore – is sharing a mutually traumatic and life changing event the only thing needed to bridge the gap between acquaintances and friends?) give a shit about his birthday. In light of everything that's happened, Derek thinks it's incredible that he's managed to give Stiles even ten seconds of a good mood, let alone an entire hour's worth.

As soon as they're in the car, however, Stiles is demanding to be taken back to his usual haunts – down the block from Scott's bar, where he'll sit and wait and turn a trick or two until Scott's shift starts, so he can go down and eat cold or burnt fries by the handful for the rest of the night. 

Derek knows that he doesn't have much of a say in the matter. It's not like he can keep Stiles holed up in his fucking penthouse for very long, at least not without drawing suspicion from his colleagues. Plus, Stiles flat out wouldn't let it happen. He's got too much pride for that sort of a thing. To the point where Derek is certain Stiles is going to raid a charity bin for new clothes that aren't ones Derek loaned to him, and not just because they barely even fit him. 

So, against his better judgment, Derek drives Stiles to the slum district and pulls over on the curb, right across the street from Pacers. It's not open yet, this early in the afternoon, but he catches the briefest glimpse of Boyd in the alley, throwing a trash bag into the dumpster out back. Stiles unbuckles his seatbelt, puts his hand on the door handle, and then he pauses, frozen still for a moment. 

He looks down at his lap, out the windshield to squint into the sun, and then he sighs. “Listen...” he starts, voice low. “Um – thanks. For saving my life, or whatever.” 

Derek drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “It's what anyone else would've done,” he says. 

Stiles meets his eyes, an unreadable expression on his face. “No, it isn't.” If anyone would know just what _anyone else would do_ in situations like that, Stiles would. Derek isn't sure what he's supposed to say – you're welcome seems wrong, for some reason, like it hardly carries the weight of what he wants it to – so he just holds Stiles' eye contact for another second, until Stiles finally looks away, out the windshield again. 

“And for the food, too,” he goes on, voice sounding strained. “No one's ever – you know. Whatever.” 

No one's ever done something like that for him without expecting something in return. Scott and Scott alone might be the only person Stiles has left in the world who isn't trying to get something from him. Derek purses his lips when Stiles finally pulls on the handle and cracks the door open – he reaches over and grabs Stiles by his shoulder, holding him back for a second. 

Stiles glances at the hand on his shoulder, and then back up to Derek's face. He looks like he knows what's coming. 

“Watch out for yourself,” Derek tells him, and Stiles nearly starts an eye roll. He stops part way through, choosing instead to glare down at Derek's hand instead. “I mean it. Don't go to the other side. Don't leave the same two block radius if you can help it – if you see trouble, don't get involved -” 

“I'm not an idiot,” Stiles huffs, though there's no real venom behind it. 

“Don't fuck around.” 

Stiles pulls Derek's hand off his shoulder – the touch almost feels lingering, for a second too long, Stiles' fingers against his own. But the moment is over quickly, and Stiles has climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. Derek watches him as he walks through the sunny street, passing strangers by, all the way until he rounds a corner and becomes just another one of them. 

When Derek gets back home, he walks to the fridge and pauses before pulling it open, noticing something off instinctually, like someone's gone ahead and moved or removed or changed something that's been in the same place for months, or even years. 

Sure enough, when he looks, he finds that the exact newspaper clipping that Stiles had been glaring at so intensely this morning has a hole ripped out of it. The picture of the Sheriff that sat alongside Talia's picture has been torn off in a messy uneven blob, leaving a couple of rips and runs in the rest of the paper. Derek stares at it for another moment longer, utterly mystified as to why Stiles would either deface this just to be a shit, or why he would deface it for a reason.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if you're subscribed to me or the fic and you get like 3 emails a day with notifs about updates but like I said I'm trying to get all the chapters up before my spring break ends on Monday~

“Which one of you was it?” 

There's a silence – it's like one of those moments in the movies where the camera pans to every individual person in the room, everyone's eyes darting to the person next to them, just waiting for someone else to speak up. Peter raises one eyebrow as he scans all of their faces, a slow smile spreading across his face. 

Laura has her hand over her mouth, elbow balanced on her knee, staring pointedly out the window as though she's hoping someone from out there will take responsibility for this instead of anyone in this room. Of course, it couldn't be anyone else than the people sitting here, right now. After all, there's only six people in the city who carry guns with Hale crest engraved bullets like the ones the forensics team at the Beacon County Sheriff's department dug out of Theo Raeken's dead body on an operating table. 

“Come on,” Peter goads, half laughing, like this is more amusing than it is terrifying, “we can't start the celebration until we have a guest of honor. Erica?” 

Erica is the first person who pops into anyone's mind whenever a person's been found dead with a Hale bullet through their head – she's got the highest kill count of anyone that Derek knows, even more than Laura. She's trigger happy in the sense that she doesn't wait for the other person to pull their gun out first before making her final decision. Normally, she takes her props with a shrug and a purse of her lips. If she's not necessarily proud or enthusiastic about the people she kills, she normally at bare minimum admits that it was her. 

This time, she looks indignant at the accusation. “Fuck off,” she mutters, averting her eyes. “I'm not fucking crazy, so at least that makes one of us.” 

Lydia shifts in her seat next to Derek; she's had her shoulders bunched into a stiff line since the moment she first sat down, making eye contact with everyone only for long enough to not look shifty-eyed or nervous. She's not much for whisteblowing, so she won't be opening her mouth anytime soon to charge Derek with the crime, but keeping this particular secret for the last twenty-four hours has probably been very nearly killing her. He doesn't know what she did when the cops arrived, if she just drove away, around and around in circles all around the city, chainsmoking and cursing Derek's name up to the high heavens. 

“Nobody wants to come forward?” 

“Does it _matter_?” Laura is petulant, finally moving her hand away from her mouth to scratch a bit manically at her arm. “He's dead. That's it.” 

“I need to know,” Peter says quietly, in his _don't fucking argue with me_ voice – the one that has Laura shrinking back into her seat, chewing on her thumbnail. “If people are going to be dying because of this, I'd like to know who's going to answer for it.” 

Derek is reluctant to admit his guilt for one reason and one reason alone. It's not because anything bad will happen to him – Peter will probably just pat him on the back and hand him a cigar, proud of him for maybe the first time in their entire lives. He doesn't fear for his life, his safety, any of it. 

He's reluctant because they'll all want to know why, why he would do that, why he would throw everything into chaos, _why_ , and there's not a fucking chance in hell Derek is going to namedrop Stiles in this room full of these people. No fucking way. 

Peter, most of all. That kind of knowledge in his hands is like the holy grail, to him. Something he can dangle over Derek's head like a red flag, inciting him to do anything that Peter wants him to, if the cards are played just right. 

Still, none of them are leaving this room until someone speaks up, he knows. He bounces his leg up and down, clenching his hands together in his lap. 

“Fucking Christ,” Boyd mutters with a hand to his forehead as the silence persists another moment longer. Derek doesn't have a choice. Whether anyone knows he did it or not, the street skirmishes will start up, catapulting the city back into near certifiable chaos after over fifteen years of relative calm. Keeping the secret will only piss Peter of all the more, so with only the barest hope that he can somehow talk his way out of it without bringing up Stiles, he clears his throat.

“It was me.” 

The reaction is immediate – Lydia purses her lips hard, Laura looks at him like she doesn't even fucking know who he _is_ , anymore, and Erica nearly leaps out of her seat. 

“ _What_?” She screeches, eyes frantically searching his face for any hint of a joke or a lie. “Are you – you're covering for someone. You -”

“I did it,” he insists, looking at no one in particular. It's hard to believe because, again, he's never gotten involved in anything before. It'd be one thing if he'd finally taken an interest in the form of getting involved in the actual business, but shooting and killing someone in an alley is coming in with more of a, mind the pun, _bang_. 

Still, she shakes her head just slightly, like she either can't believe it, or doesn't want to. 

“Why would he cover for anyone?” Peter isn't smiling, or laughing, but he does look decidedly pleased with this development. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans back against his desk like they're having a radically different conversation – the weather, or dinner plans. “It's an honor to have the title.” 

Laura scoffs and mutters something under her breath, the word _honor_ being spit out sarcastically somewhere in between the lines. 

“I found him wandering around Hale territory like he fucking owned the place,” Derek explains, ignoring everyone else's stares of disbelief. “As usual, he brought a knife to a gun fight, so it wasn't much of a scuffle.” 

“I'd say,” Erica hisses. “There's not a fucking scratch on you.” 

Derek shrugs. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say to that. 

“Well,” Peter begins imperiously, mouth twisting upwards, “congratulations, Derek. You've taken the first steps toward taking the city back for ourselves.” 

“Right.” Inside, he's screaming about how little he gives a shit which parts of the city belong to whom, how he's _never_ given a shit, that all of this is arbitrary and infantile. A bunch of kids fighting over a toy castle with plastic guns. 

“What are we going to do?” Laura asks, voice verging close to hysterical. “They're going to cross the lines, tonight, you know they are -” 

“Then we'll cross theirs,” Peter shrugs. 

“I'm not doing that,” Laura shakes her head fervently, and Erica is looking at her like she agrees, but Derek thinks she just won't voice that opinion. None of them have ever been to Raeken territory for anything other than an accident – from the time that he was a kid, Derek has been taught to avoid the lines and the bridge at all fucking costs. The thought of purposefully going there to incite shit is almost mind boggling to him. “I'm _not_ going to do any of this. I didn't start this, I have no god damn interest in it, I'm not going to throw myself to the wolves just because Derek apparently can't _fucking_ keep it in his pants -”

“The gauntlet's already been thrown, whether you want it or not.” Peter stands from his desk and tilts his head to stare down at the city through the window, appraising it like he's looking at something prized, cherished. “Right now, Matt is loading a gun with bullets that he intends to fire into any one of your heads. You can either let him, or do something about it. It doesn't matter to me.” 

Laura shoots another glare in Derek's direction, and then she's standing up from her chair, nearly knocking it down onto the ground in the process. “You're not family to me,” she thinks this is caustic, biting, but Peter looks at her like an annoying little gnat that won't stop buzzing around his head. “I would've died for Talia, but for _you_?” 

“Let's just relax,” Boyd tries – and instead of doing that, Laura picks her chair up and throws it as hard as she can into the closest wall. She misses Erica's head by an inch or two and winds up landing the thing into a framed drawing of the Hale family tree, cracking the glass and sending it thumping face down onto the floor. 

Lydia doesn't do much else aside from drop her head into her hand, closing her eyes and wishing herself someplace, _anywhere_ else but here, while the rest of them more or less look on with varying degrees of disinterest. 

Without another word, Laura is stalking out the door, slamming it firmly shut behind her. The walls shake with the force of it, and then the rest of them are left sitting there in silence, while Peter laughs to himself. 

“That's why you don't sample the product,” he quips, and Derek's stomach churns. “Anyone else want to have a fit? Pick up a table and fling it through a window?” 

No one moves. Not a single inch. Erica's hand twitches in her lap, and her mouth goes firm, but not even she has anything to say in the wake of all of this. 

“Good,” Peter tips his head. “If you see any Raekens, on our side or theirs, shoot them on sight.” 

“Peter -” Lydia starts, her first attempt at a comment ever since they were all gathered in this room to begin with, but she's cut off before she gets any real steam by Peter's hand coming up into the air to silence her. 

“I don't care if it's Matt, or just another one of those fucking juvenile slingers they have selling. Shoot them, or find out what happens if you don't.” 

Derek sets his jaw. Some of those kids that Theo and Matt have working for them – had, in Theo's case – are thirteen years old. But Peter's not wrong. He knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that Matt has all those kids gathered around him right now, and he's telling them the exact same thing that Peter's saying. It's hard for Derek to imagine a thirteen year old kid with a gun, much less aiming it at Derek himself, and he wonders if he'd have it in him to shoot them before they shot _him_. 

He doesn't have a choice, whether he can live with it or not. 

“I want every single one of you on the street tonight,” he adjusts the collar of his shirt and maneuvers his way between Derek and Lydia's chairs, toward the door that Laura had slammed just a minute or so ago. “As soon as the sun goes down. Try not to get yourselves killed.” 

That's the last word he has to say on the matter – it's not like he needs to give detailed instructions for what any of them are supposed to do. It's easy. Kill as many of Matt's people as possible while watching their own backs, until one group either concedes, or is wiped out completely. He opens the door with a creak, and shuts it firmly behind him. 

Erica doesn't waste a second before she's turning on him, her full body in the chair, pushing her bangs behind her ear. “Are you out of your _motherfucking mind_?” 

“What was I supposed to do?” Derek asks – even though he already knows the answer. 

“Walk the other way! Find an alley to turn down! Avoid him! Anything, Derek, _anything_ , anything but dragging us all down into the pits of god damn hell -”

“Oh, my God, it's not that dramatic -”

“He's going to drag me out into Raeken territory to _kill children_ ,” her voice reaches a register that only dogs should be able to hear, piercing loud to the point where Boyd winces, turning his head away to glare down at the floor. “Why would you do this? What – what _possible_ motive -” 

“As if your fucking line up isn't long enough already,” Derek snaps. “Why _not_ add a kid or two to the list?” 

Erica looks at him. She looks, and she looks, and she must not find what she wants to. Her face twists up like she's about to cry, but she won't. She doesn't cry. Not even in the face of something like this. “We talked,” she says, voice low, verging close to gentle. “And you said how insane it was. You said you didn't want him to do this. You said you didn't understand why he would want to do this. And then you go and you fucking do it for him. Why?” 

Betrayal is written over every line in her face; she thinks, then, that Derek has sided with Peter. That he's in on whatever crazed scheme Peter has cooked up for the _betterment of the Hale line_ , that Derek's gone over to the dark side, for want of a better term. Or, that's he's just flat out lost his mind. Derek almost can't stand to see that look on her face, so he has to turn away, to Lydia, who offers no comfort. She just sits and taps her foot on the rug, eyes staring straight ahead, unseeing. 

“I want an answer,” Erica pushes. 

Derek thinks about the look on Stiles' face when Theo had him cornered up against the wall in that alley, a horrible place to die by any comparison. He thinks about the way his skin had looked with all of Theo's blood on it, the way he had said _please, don't_ in that desperate begging tone of voice – the kind people only use when they know that nothing they say will matter. 

“It was the right thing to do,” Derek offers, and Erica stands up. For a second, Derek is almost sure she's going to hit him, or better yet, shoot him. But she just curls her upper lip in disgust, as though she can't stand the sight of him, and leaves the room in much the same manner that Laura had. 

Boyd rises and follows, maybe because he doesn't have any choice, leaving only Lydia and Derek sitting alone in Peter's office, staring out the window overlooking the city. 

Derek is more than happy to sit here in silence until the sun goes down, until he'll have to go out and walk the streets, looking out for anyone who meets the Raeken profile – really, he thinks he could use a good twenty or so minutes to just sit in silence and go over everything in his head. 

But, Lydia turns to him, and stares at the side of his face. She blinks at him for seconds on end, and then she clears her throat. “Was it worth it?” 

_Please, don't_. 

“Yes,” Derek says.

+

The summer blazes in, hot as California is want to get, and already the news outlets have started dubbing it something of a Summer of Sam – the entire city left constantly on the tip of a knife point, staring down the barrel of a gun. They might have fared better in a winter setting, a ruined Christmas even a more preferable backdrop to the fucking heat and long, long days. Hotter temperatures tend to give people more of a hairline trigger, and although only a week has gone by since Derek shot and killed Theo, already enough has happened that Derek is convinced everyone is operating on sweat.

Derek himself has been lucky to get away without encountering a Raeken, maybe because he pointedly avoids the darker sides of the city whenever he goes out at night on patrol. Instead, he sticks to driving slowly through the suburbs at three o'clock in the morning, scanning his eyes over the sidewalks under the streetlights – if the Raekens were smart, they'd steer clear of the slums just like Derek is. Of course, everyone is going to be looking for them there. It's why five of them have already been killed, while the Hales haven't even gotten a body count yet. 

But, most of them are kids. So they don't know any better, and they pay the price for their naivete. 

Erica doesn't even so much as look at Derek in meetings (these mandatory things that Peter has set up every morning at six am as a sort of confirmation that none of them are dead, just yet), holding her arms folded across her chest and her lips pursed down hard. It's anyone's guess just how many of the Raeken deaths she's personally responsible for, because she doesn't open her mouth to admit to any of them and neither does anyone else, but Derek would wager at least half. 

He wonders if she has nightmares, sleeping during the day with the summer heat creeping in through her open bedroom window. Images of fresh-faced kids lying in pools of their own blood like the ones they flash across the news day in and day out to scare people into staying inside as soon as the sun goes down. He wonders if she sleeps at all.

Derek nearly doesn't. Even with air conditioning he can still taste the heat inside his mouth like a certain kind of bitter, smell gun powder in the air as he lies awake all through the day. The few times his body manages to shut down because it physically has to, he does have nightmares, vivid, lifelike – though none of it is exactly the same thing that Erica or Lydia might be losing sleep over. 

He dreams, again and again, of holding a gun up to Stiles' temple. He's seen Stiles afraid enough times by now that his subconscious can produce the exact image of his wide eyes, the part of his lips as he pants desperate breaths through them, the exact cadence of his voice as _please, don't_ echoes around and around inside of Derek's head. 

Every time, he fires. It's like he doesn't have a choice. He never even looks away, so he watches in perfect sound and color as Stiles bleeds out all over the pavement in the same alley they first met each other in. He takes a step back when the pool of it gets too close to his shoes. 

For three afternoons now, he's shot up in bed drenched in sweat, rubbing his forehead as he reminds himself it was _just a dream, just a dream, just a dream_. But he's started thinking, irrational as ever, that the dreams are some kind of a prophecy. As though he'll ultimately have to shoot Stiles, either because someone is making him, or because he _wants_ to. The thought is paralyzing. 

Even worse is when he thinks that the dream is a retelling of a memory. Sending him back to that alley beside Scott's bar, when he pressed his arm against Stiles' neck. Maybe Derek has already signed Stiles' death certificate by ever getting involved with him to begin with. Maybe. Derek wishes he could just fucking stay awake. 

Today, he hits the pavement as soon as the sunset casts the city in orange. Lights go on, but not nearly as many as usual. Some businesses have started closing at eight o'clock, even some of the more well-to-do bars. Of course, everything in the slums stays open and bright with little protection more than loaded guns underneath the registers. Other businesses can afford to lose the hours, but nobody downtown can risk it. 

He passes Lydia's car at an intersection, and she lifts her hand in a wave from behind her windshield. Derek waves back. It's the most interaction either of them have directly had with one another since that day in Peter's office down at the safe house, frankly the most interaction Derek's had with anyone aside from Peter. Laura is sullen and silent, strung out more than half the time, and Boyd never says shit to begin with, and Erica hates Derek so much he half expects her to just hurry up and fire a shot through his mouth point blank, and Lydia is – well. 

She might not be mad at him, but he knows that she doesn't understand. She might have a greater moral compass than most people in this business, but even she can't really excuse the start of something like this over a fucking teenaged alley-whore like Stiles. She was always the one who said personal feelings for people like them typically end in nothing but bloodshed, and she's turned out to be right this time. But she doesn't make comments. She takes her pictures of the dead Raeken bodies, tries to keep her composure even standing over an orphaned fourteen year old, and doesn't say a word. 

Derek plans on driving along his usual route until his gas runs out, but first, he stops at the diner on the corner of 5th for coffee. His eyes are begging to be closed, dry and heavy, but Derek is terrified to look at his own eyelids – so coffee, it is. 

When he gets inside, Allison the waitress gives him a double-take, and then nervously flashes him a smile. He assumes, at first, it's because she's finally wised up to who he is. And, of course, having a Hale inside the same room as yourself during a time like this could potentially end in getting caught in some serious crossfire. But she doesn't ask him to leave. He approaches the counter and slides a ten dollar bill across the counter towards her, one that she eyeballs like it's about to catch on fire. 

“The usual,” he tells her, and she nods once, forcing a smile onto her face. 

She takes the bill, swallowing, and then she quickly pushes it back. “Can I ask you something?” 

In all the two years that she's been working here and Derek has been coming, they have never once had an interaction beyond coffee and money, the occasional warmed banana nut muffin. Derek looks over his shoulder to see who's around to possibly listen in to this – a group of college-aged kids pooling their money in the center of the table, a woman at the end of the counter eating soup – and turns back to look Allison in the face. “Sure.” 

Allison tucks her hair behind her ear, averts her eyes down to the money sitting in between them. “Have you -” Derek has no fucking idea what she's about to say after the hesitation, but a million possibilities zoom through his mind. Not a single one of them, however, was, “...have you seen Stiles?” 

Derek doesn't know if this question is more of a relief than any other she could've asked. He bunches his shoulders up, and blinks at her a couple of times. She gets this look on her face like she's nervous, but doesn't flinch underneath Derek's unyielding gaze, just looks steadily back at him, waiting. “A week ago,” he says. 

She shifts her feet, scratching at her eyebrow. “Me, too. He normally comes in every other night, and he's – when someone like him stops coming in, it usually...”

It usually means they're dead in a ditch somewhere. Derek knows for a solid fact that Stiles _isn't_ , because Lydia leaves him a manila folder of pictures with Derek's bodyguard every other night, capturing Stiles screwing around with his cards on street corners or wandering into food kitchens for the tomato soup and grilled cheese special. Yesterday afternoon, he apparently wiled his time away with a ten dollar bill in a comic book store and came out with potato chips and a new pack of cards. He's fine. 

Still, Derek doesn't know if he can relay this information to Allison exactly as it is – that Lydia Martin is tailing him and gives Derek pictures of him - because she would certainly get the wrong fucking idea about all of that. He chooses his next words carefully. “He's doing all right. We – I look out for him, most of the time.” 

Anyone else would snort and roll their eyes at the thought of Derek Hale, or any of the Hales at that, _looking out_ for a street kid the way Derek is claiming that he does. But, Allison gets a thoughtful look on her face, and then nods her head in acceptance. “Okay,” she breathes out, relief written in every inch of her body language. “I just know he doesn't have anyone else to make sure that he's not out there getting himself killed. We used to – we went to school together.” 

Derek raises his eyebrows. It's not necessarily surprising, as she and Stiles look to be around the same age, but it's funny how small the world is. Or, at least, how small the city is. Full of kids who can't seem to escape over the mountains onto the other side, where real opportunities wait for them. “Oh, yeah?” 

Allison nods her head, finally taking the ten dollar bill away to process it in the cash register. “I grew up with him. When his dad died, you know, we tried to help him, but he – you know.” 

Derek has already heard enough from Scott about how people tried to _help_ Stiles, so he doesn't need another angle of the story from Allison. It'll serve to do nothing aside from piss Derek off, probably. 

“He's fine,” Derek reiterates as Allison pulls a coffee cup off the stack and presses a button on the cappuccino machine. “He's just sticking to other sides of town. You would be smart to the do the same.” 

She looks over her shoulder with an apologetic smile on her face. “I don't have a choice.” 

Right. Her, and hundreds of others like her, don't have any other choice but to stay out late until the heat breaks, walk home alone with their keys clenched between their fingers well past midnight. 

Derek takes his coffee and heads back to his car, where ninety-nine percent of his life takes place these days, and drives off into the night that's turning blue into black as the minutes tick by. He thinks about Allison and Stiles at one point having been in _school_ together, thinks about Stiles in school, and it's so bizarre a thought to him that he nearly can't picture it. 

Then again, he definitely can. Stiles chewing on a pencil in a high school desk, a backpack at his feet filled with textbooks and notebooks and stray papers, playing an organized sport of some kind. It makes sense, in a way. He never got to finish, went and threw his life away before he got the chance to get _anywhere_ , but Derek knows he'd have been one of the smarter ones. 

It's not a surprise when Derek turns a corner at around eleven o'clock in the suburbs and catches Stiles punching some other kid in the face – well, seeing Stiles at all isn't a surprise. He lives and lurks on the streets, so it was only a matter of time until Derek would stumble upon him on one of these late night patrols. But the fighting part is a little bit of a surprise, if only because Stiles never struck Derek as the type. 

Still, there he is, street fighting another kid around his age. Derek pulls over right as Stiles gets a fist to his jaw, unbuckles his seatbelt and opens his door as Stiles gets his hand fisted into the kid's shirt, and calls out right when Stiles looks just about ready to literally _headbutt_ this other fucking kid. It'd be funny if it weren't so ridiculous. “Hey,” he calls, and immediately the two of them scatter like they've been caught rough housing on the playground. 

The other kid, definitely another Hale territory seller if Derek has ever seen one – about nineteen, dirty clothes, bruises all along his face – immediately takes off like a shot down the sidewalk as though his very life depends on it. 

Stiles, on the other hand, stands there looking annoyed. He puts his hands on his hips and glares at Derek as he rounds the front of his car – it might be a lot more of an effective stare down if Stiles weren't bleeding out of his mouth and looking generally worse for wear. 

“Can you fucking hop off it?” He snaps. As Derek gets closer, he sees that Stiles' cards are tossed haplessly all over the sidewalk, some face up, some face down. The king of spades is sitting right beside Derek's foot as he comes to a stop, hands in his pockets, taking in the full sight of Stiles in person for the first time in days. “Why did you _do_ that?” 

“Why did I stop you from street fighting?” Derek repeats the question like it's idiotic, because it is, and Stiles huffs, running his hand through his hair. 

“Look. We're all out here, every man for himself,” he gestures out to the roads of suburbia, front porches and carefully mown lawns and the occasional cat preening under a streetlight. Derek raises his eyebrows, hoping Stiles sees just how fucking dumb he sounds right now, but Stiles continues onward. “Every now and then, we have to beat the shit out of each other just to not get messed with. All right? Now everyone's going to say I win fights because some big dude in a nice car shows up and handles my _affairs_.” 

Ah, right. Street politics. In all the hubbub, Derek has sort of forgotten that Stiles doesn't actually belong to the Hale regime. He belongs to the streets, nothing more, nothing less, and they have their own hierarchy and ranks. He can't imagine where Stiles fits into the whole thing, skinny and starving all the time. But apparently, he holds his rank very close to his heart, because he still looks mad. 

Sighing, Derek rolls his eyes. “I didn't mean to ruin your street cred.” 

“It's not -” Stiles looks mad for another second more, before he bends down and begins collecting his cards into a pile with long fingers. “ _Look_. This time of the year is the hardest even without people being shot and fucking killed like animals on street corners.”

Derek wonders if Stiles has seen any of that, and if he has, how much. It wouldn't surprise him to learn that Stiles was only a block or two away, in perfect hearing distance of the gunshot, when the last Raeken kid bit it in Hale territory. It was only a little ways from Scott's bar, after all. 

“...because I have to spend extra money on things like _deodorant_ in this damned fucking hellpit sauna. Believe it or not, people aren't exactly jumping at the chance to have sex with a kid who smells like a high school locker room.” 

As he collects and organizes his cards back into his palm, Derek glares at the top of his head. He wishes, really wishes, that he had any jurisdiction whatsoever to tell Stiles to _stop_ fucking turning tricks. Most of the time he represses the thought, and it's easy with everything else going on, but every time Stiles has to come along and remind him of what it is he does to feed himself, Derek just wants to grab him and ask him to just – _not_. 

Even if he did do that, Stiles would just shove Derek's hand away, tell him to go fuck himself, and trail off to find someone else to do exactly that with. Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and swallows, trying to shake off the intrusive images he gets inside of his head. A man like Carl breathing rancid breath along Stiles' neck, fitting their greasy hands on his slim hips – it's more than enough to make him murderously angry, but he breathes in and out to calm down. 

“...so you can't be showing up whenever you feel like to beat people off of me. Occasionally, you're chasing the fucking money away.” 

“All right,” Derek snaps through grit teeth. “Fine. Next time I see you getting the shit beat out of you, I'll keep right on driving. How's that?” 

“Oh, you _fuck_.” Stiles stands up, even though half his cards are still scattered around their feet, and points a finger menacingly in Derek's face. “Nobody was _beating the shit_ out of me. I was winning. I _had_ that guy.” 

It looked to Derek like a pretty even fight, honestly, but he figures it wouldn't be very wise to make a comment like that. Instead, he just nods his head and puts his hands up. “All right, yes. Fine. I'm sorry. I'll only step in if you're about to get your brains smashed in.” 

Stiles throws his hands in the air, frustrated. “ _Ugh_! I don't get you.” 

“What's there to get?” 

He's kneeling down again, muttering under his breath as he slides his nails underneath a few cards to get them into the palm of his hand. “Why you spend all of this time on me.” 

“Apparently, if I don't, no one else does either.” 

“I have Scott.” 

“Scott couldn't keep you from getting brained on a sidewalk, Stiles.” 

Stiles looks like he's about to argue that, but then he just purses his lips and sets back to the task at hand. “You're – everything that's happened -” he won't bring up Theo, of course not, but Derek knows that's what he's referring to anyway, “...you know I'm just street trash, right? I'm – there's nothing about me that's even remotely worth sticking your neck out for.” 

Down on the ground, Stiles keeps his eyes pointedly directed at his cards, slowly scooping them up one by one meticulously. Maybe to give himself more time down there with something to do with his hands so he doesn't have to meet Derek's eyes. 

“I would disagree with that.” 

Stiles pauses for a millisecond, fingers ghosting over a card, and then he sniffles and shakes his head. “Well, you'd be wrong. I hate to tell you, but all this trouble you're going to – all you're doing is leaving one extra mouth for the soup kitchens to feed. It really isn't fucking worth it.” 

It'd be near impossible for anyone in Stiles' position to not start to think of themselves as _worthless_ – after two entire years of living like this, it'd be amazing if Stiles thought of himself as anything more than a warm mouth. Derek doesn't necessarily blame him, but it does make him angry. Stiles is clever, and quick-witted, and he's managed to stay alive for this long, so he must be cunning, and there's a million different layers to him that Derek wishes he had the time to peel away, to _know him_ like he wants to. 

He can't say any of that. Stiles will get the wrong idea. “It is to me.” 

Stiles looks up and meets his eyes, at that. He's got all his cards in his hand now, and he slowly rises up to standing, barely an inch shorter than Derek. He looks away, briefly, down to the cards in his hand, and then with burning cheeks he holds a card out to Derek with a gruff, “here,” muttered under his breath. 

It's the king of spades that had been at Derek's feet earlier, hovering in between Stiles' fingers for Derek to take. He looks at it for a moment, then at Stiles' face beyond it. He looks shy about it, like he's offering Derek something much more intimate and personal than just one of the cards he doles out to addicts and scum all over the city.

Derek takes it. As he turns it over in his hand, he finds that there's something written on the back of the card over the red and white pattern. Closer inspection has it at a phone number, ten digits with a Beacon Hills area code. Derek frowns – last he checked Stiles didn't have a phone. 

Stiles scratches at his cheek and looks away, down the street. “It's – a way to get into contact with me, if you want. Like, whatever.” 

“This is your number?”

In front of him, Stiles smiles. It's not a nice smile. “It's _a_ number. You might not like who answers, but it's...you know.” 

Derek stares at the number for seconds on end, until finally a lightbulb goes off in his head. He palms his forehead, and thinks briefly about ripping the card up into pieces just like he'd done with the one that Peter had given him. “Is this your _fucking_ pimp's -”

“We prefer the term boss,” he hisses, scanning his eyes up and down the street to make sure no one heard that. “I mean, he's a dick. But if you call him and ask him where I am, he'll tell you. Just – you know. I thought...” 

He's having a vivid fantasy of getting Lydia to track the number to the owner's name, their fucking location, and wolfing him down to the exact block he's on, putting a bullet through his head. He bets there are a dozen kids underneath his control, all sixteen and fifteen and eighteen, and he'd be doing all of them a favor if he just went ahead and killed this guy. 

Still, Stiles is standing there looking like he's just given Derek his most prized possession, all vulnerable and nervous about it. So he just sighs, long and loud, and pockets the card safely between his phone and wallet. 

“Thanks,” he says. 

“You should use it,” Stiles tells him, clearing his throat and awkwardly shuffling his feet. “You know, if you ever wanted to -” 

“Don't even finish that _fucking_ sentence.” 

“What?” Stiles snaps, cheeks going an even darker shade of red than before. “I'm eighteen now, you know! There's nothing wrong with -”

“I wouldn't do that to you,” Derek half yells it, and Stiles snaps his mouth closed. His eyes are wide in his skull, but he doesn't seem to have anything to say to that. “Don't ask me that again, you got it?”

“Fine,” Stiles says, sullenly glaring at his hands. 

“I'll use this to call and make sure you're all right. That's it.” 

Stiles turns his card deck over and over in his hands, frowning down at it so intensely it's like it's gone ahead and personally offended him, somehow. “Fine.” He says it again, and turns on his heel, stalking down the sidewalk until he's crossing over to another block.

Derek calls “Allison was looking for you,” at his retreating back, and Stiles pauses in the middle of the street. He turns around, gives Derek a look he can't read given the distance, and then turns back, walking only marginally faster.

+

“Which one of you was it?”

Just like the first time it was asked, the question hangs in the air – only it's heavier this time, a weight so thick Derek thinks he could reach out and touch it. It's the first time he's seen Matt Daehler up close and personal in some time, but there he is, looking just as half-deranged as he always has. Though, it might be more three quarters deranged this time around, likely from being thrust into the highest power position. Derek knows he considers it the same way that Peter always has. All he must think about, day in and day out, is how to keep himself here, powerful and unquestionable. To the point where he's willing to sit himself and his best men and women in a room with the Hales, all underneath the guise of trying to broker some sort of a standstill, if not necessarily peace. 

No one speaks up, at first. Erica, surprisingly, doesn't scream out Derek's name to fuck him over, but instead just sits and looks put out beyond all belief that she has to be sitting here in the warehouse district, far enough on the outer edges of town that it was never designated as either Hale or Raeken territory. She crosses her legs one over the other, leans back in her chair, and does her absolute best to look casual and indifferent, as though none of this even vaguely interests her. But he knows that she's hyperaware of where her firearm sits on her hip, how many milliseconds it would take for her to pull it out, which one of the men across the table she has the best chance at shooting through the head without having to take the time to properly aim. 

All of them are thinking the exact same thing as her, all put upon airs and facades aside. Derek included. 

“Don't play games with me,” Matt warns, cocking his head to the side as he scans over each one of their faces. Laura deigns to stare back and meet his eyes directly, and he raises an eyebrow. “I just want to know who it is that put me in this position to begin with. Maybe I owe them a debt of gratitude.” 

“ _Gratitude_ ,” Erica drawls, throwing her head back. “You've lost nearly fifteen people in the span of under two weeks, but you expect us to believe you owe any single one of us -”

“I asked you to meet me here tonight, didn't I?” 

Indeed, he did. Peter had accepted immediately, throwing his head back in laughter – a chance to have all the Raekens lined up for him to release a domino effect on top of was too good to pass up, even with the probability that one of his own, or several of his own as it's looking now, would wind up dead. 

“If we tell you who killed Theo, you'd shoot them before they finished admitting it,” Lydia doesn't meet his eyes as she speaks, but she sits up straight and tall, hands folded neatly in her lap. 

“I could shoot you whether you say anything or not,” he shrugs in response. Beside him, the new right hand man of the Raeken regime – a stone faced woman named Jennifer who looks like she got to this point by clawing someone's eyes out of their skull – shifts just enough in her seat that her jacket falls open, revealing the piece she has against her hip. “If I wanted to shoot any of you, I'd have done it by now.” 

It's a bullshit cop-out, and everyone knows it is. None of the Hales opened fire when they walked in this room either, but there's not a doubt in Derek's mind that Peter intends on firing his gun before the night is over. _I'd have done it by now_ is a way to alleviate the situation to lure everyone into a false sense of security. Luckily, no one falls for it. The moment following his statement passes in silence, Boyd leaning forward to clasp his hands inbetween his legs while surreptitiously getting a closer look at everyone across the table – so as soon as the first person moves to fire, he'll see it coming before anyone else. 

“I want to know who shot Theo for my own personal information,” he insists, a smile twisting his mouth up cruelly. “There's no motives.” 

“I thought you brought us here to issue a ceasefire,” Laura hisses, sarcasm dripping all over her tone. 

Matt's smile grows wider, more predatory. “If I know why Theo was killed, I'd be more receptive to the idea. Nobody fires without a reason, isn't that right?” 

“I don't remember there being a reason when you shot Talia and left her to bleed out in the middle of the woods,” Derek reminds him stonily, meeting his eyes head on. Matt cocks his head to the side, eyes squinting into a narrow glare.

“I didn't kill Talia. Or the Sheriff. In spite of what you've been told.” 

Derek can't help it – he laughs. Everyone, _everyone_ knows that Matt and Theo were the ones there that night, the only Raekens, the only people who could have and would have done something like that. Everyone knows that Matt is the one who fired the first shot right into Talia's shoulder. The bullets were Raeken silver. It couldn't have been anyone else. “Right.” 

Peter, who has been silent up to this point, clears his throat. “If we tell you which of us killed Theo, you'll request a ceasefire.” 

Matt puts his hands palm down on the table, and nods. “Theo did nothing but keep me from having any control over my own people for as long as he was in power – really, I insist, you did me a favor. I just want the name.”

Erica's eyes shift in Derek's direction, just minutely, not enough for anyone else to notice, and he knows that it's now, or it's never. Either Derek admits to it and they enter whatever unknown is on the other side of that admission, or Matt grows tired of being dicked around and open fires. No matter how he looks at it, it's a fucking mistake, but he got himself into this mess. He got all of them into this. The very bare minimum least he could do is take responsibility for it, like a man. 

He straightens his shoulders, rolling his neck to the side to crack a bone there and draw out the tension. “I shot Theo,” he says, and every single pair of eyes on the room lands on him simultaneously. 

Matt laughs. It's about the same level of reaction as Erica had when she first found out, although it's expressed much differently and for much different reasons. He laughs, and he laughs, until Laura is shifting uncomfortably and Jennifer looks about ready to tell him to shut the fuck up. 

When they meet eyes and the giggles settle down, Derek shrugs his shoulders. “I did,” he insists. “I shot him through the throat and the head and left him like the the fucking scum he was, and?” 

“Oh, you did,” Matt snickers, eyes wide and mocking. “I'm sure you did. Let me ask you something,” he leans forward, further, so close that it almost seems like he's trying to push the table out of his way to have nothing in between him and Derek, “why would you do that?” 

Derek blinks at him, and doesn't say anything. 

“It's an honest question. It seems to me like a bit of a rash decision to make, considering all the consequences you now have to suffer through because of it. People dying, _ooh_ , your biggest fear.” 

Matt has always had this idea of Derek that he's somewhat of a softy, to put it in nicer terms, and this is an opinion that he's voiced many a time in their encounters with one another. He thinks that Derek is weak, that he doesn't have even half the balls it takes to be in this business to begin with, that he's some nominal do-nothing, much the same way that Theo was. But, in Matt's eyes, Derek is worse. At least Theo was a raging psychopath who chopped people into pieces with fucking kitchen knives. It was never a secret in the underground that Derek had never killed anyone, in spite of the stories the streets came up with – Matt's always mocked him for it. 

“So then, why would Derek Hale, useless fucking figurehead of an even more useless regime,” at the insult, Peter's eye twitches, but he doesn't move, “shoot and kill for the first time in his life? That's an honest question. You agree?” 

“Sure,” Derek does, voice loaded with false indifference. 

“It wasn't just because Theo was on Hale territory. You're not Erica fucking Reyes,” he gestures to her, and she looks peeved beyond all fucking belief that he had the nerve to namedrop her, but doesn't speak up. “So, why?” 

Derek leans back in his seat, and raises his eyebrows. This way, it's easier to grab his gun, if he has to, and Matt knows that. He traces the movement with his eyes, his lips twitching like he desperately wants to start laughing. 

“Is it because Theo did something to you?” 

“He's never done anything to me.” 

“No, maybe not,” Matt's fingers start shifting just slightly over the top of the metal table. “Maybe he just touched something of yours. Is that right?” 

Dead, deafening silence. Derek meets Matt's eyes and sees nothing there, not an inch of human emotion, but he thinks if he looked hard enough he could almost see Stiles' reflection in his pupils staring right back at him. That tight lipped smile he gives to his clients, the duck of his head. He thinks about Matt leading Stiles down that alley that night, thinks about every thing that could've happened in that fifteen or twenty minute period of time they were alone together in the dark; and he knows, now, in this moment, with Matt looking at him with that _fucking_ smile on his face, that Theo knew what he was doing that night. 

Derek has half a mind to think that Matt was the one in the black car that drove Theo there to begin with, the one that drove off as soon as Theo was dead. All three of them, Matt, Theo, and Peter – they wanted this. He knows. 

They used Derek, and even more specifically they used _Stiles_ to meet their own fucking ends in order to throw the entire city into chaos. To get at that power. Stiles was never anything more to any of them than a means to an end. Their plan didn't go exactly right – Stiles is meant to be sliced up in a body bag somewhere, the final straw to break the camel's back. Instead, Theo is dead, and Matt isn't fooling anyone when he says that Derek's _done him a favor_. 

Matt tilts his head to the side, and smiles wider. “Is _that_ right?” 

That's it. Derek's hand feels like it's caught fire as he reaches for his piece – a millisecond in time, if that, but it's enough that the entire room erupts as though tectonic plates underneath them have shifted, knocking everything off balance, cracking the ground beneath their feet. 

Jennifer nearly puts a bullet clean through Derek's head – he can see it happening, can nearly feel it, even as he fires his own in Matt's general direction. But Boyd flips the metal table in between them over, knocking her elbow with the edge of it so that she misses, sending the shot up and over Derek's head into the ceiling. Dry wall falls down over Laura's head, who curses and rolls herself out of her chair onto the ground, aiming and firing at someone Derek doesn't have a chance to see. 

Derek shot Matt in the arm. Not fatal, and not nearly satisfying enough for Derek to be fucking finished with him. He's lifting his arm to fire again, even as Matt is righting himself and ripping his own out to shoot back, but Lydia grabs his arm right as Derek pulls the trigger. The shot lands in the chest of one of Matt's nameless, faceless lackeys, and Derek swears. 

“We have to go,” Lydia hisses at him. She doesn't seem to care that Derek is giving her a look like he might just shoot her instead, for ruining his chance at killing Matt once and for all. She also doesn't seem to care about the fact that Erica is reloading over Derek's shoulder, that Boyd is landing a shot in between someone's eyes behind her, or that Peter's arm is bleeding even as he keeps fucking going, and going.

She maneuvers herself and Derek through the chaos, pushing him down into a duck at the last second so he can _feel_ the whoosh of a bullet over both of their heads. When they stand back up, there's a hole in the wall not two inches away where Derek's head had been. He tries not to think about it. There's no time to think about it. 

They spill out together through the warehouse doors, onto concrete that's slowly being taken over by the surrounding forest, and Derek rounds on her. 

“What the _fuck_ was that about?” He yells, even as the shootout inside grows louder, more theatrical as the seconds tick by. She runs her hands through her hair, fingers digging in so that she briefly separates it all into sections; as they're standing here, any one of their friends could be dead, or dying.

“You realize you've made yourself the target of this entire war now, don't you?” 

“I -”

“Implicating yourself as Theo's murderer has only made you public enemy number one to them,” she gestures toward the warehouse, where Derek can only hope and fucking pray that Matt has found himself on the other end of a bullet. “Everyone else in there is meaningless to Matt, even Peter. He wants _you_.” 

It's true. Derek knows it's true. If he had stood in that room for any longer, then he would be lying in a pool of his own blood right about now. Once Matt has his eyes on someone, once he has it in his head that they owe him something, he'll take the price in the form of their head on a fucking pike, and he won't stop until he gets exactly that.

“All that shit he said in there,” Derek hisses, pulling the clip out of his gun just for something to do with his hands, and watches as bullets splatter all over the pavement, “it was all a fucking load of horseshit -”

“I know.” The gunfire has stopped, by this point, nothing but yelling and the slamming of doors to be heard from inside as each side backs down and retreats. 

“How he wanted to _thank_ whoever killed Theo.”

“I know.” 

“Fucking ceasefire my god damn -”

“He wants to kill every single one of us,” Lydia agrees, turning her head as Erica spills out of the warehouse doors herself on unsteady feet, blood spilling down the side of her face, all over her hands, but she's walking. “...just, you, in specific.” 

“Let's go,” Erica half screams, limping her way to the cars parked in a line with her hand pressed firmly against her side. “I've been _fucking_ shot, let's go, before this ruins my god damn night.” 

Derek rolls his eyes back into his head, rubs his fingers against his temples. That's not a fatal wound, he knows, and Erica will survive, _he knows_ , so he doesn't think about that. Even as she's spilling onto the ground from blood loss, Lydia helping her back up onto her feet, Derek doesn't think about that. 

All he can think about, watching Laura and Boyd emerge in relatively one piece, is how badly he wants to walk back into that room, chase Matt out the backdoor he must be slithering his way through, and kill him. It's what he should've done the second he walked into that room, but he had been stupid. He didn't want to cause the scene himself – of course, he did, in the end. 

Peter is the last to come out, bleeding from a bullet graze on his arm, but he hardly pays it any mind. He walks like he's never been healthier in his life, a bounce in his step, smirking over the noise of Erica screaming about how her clothes are ruined, she can't feel her hands, the blood all over her legs. 

Derek stands in the middle of a pool of his own discarded bullets from his clip, and wishes he hadn't done that. He thinks about what it would be like, what would happen, if he lifted his gun right now and shot Peter. He has a clear shot, he thinks, if he just reloaded, if he just moved, and reloaded, and fired, then he could end this, all of it, and they - 

But he doesn't. He stands and watches Peter pass him. After another second, Derek turns and helps Boyd get Erica into the backseat of Lydia's car. It'll wind up being another time that he didn't do what he should have. 

Going to the hospital, being who they are, has always been a bit difficult. It's not like they particularly had a choice in Erica's case – she had been shot in the fucking side, there was no getting around it – but no one could go in with her. They dumped her in front of the emergency room and watched from Lydia's car as she hobbled her way through the sliding doors, just to make sure she made it in okay. Nurses swarmed her pretty much immediately, seeing as how she collapsed her way into a potted plant and took the whole thing down with her in a dirty, green and red heap, and then she was being hauled off down a hallway. 

Lydia sat for another second in the driver's seat, before driving off to sit in a parking spot at the back of the lot. They didn't talk much during those few hours, her and Derek, because there wasn't much to say. There's only so many times they can go round and around with the same topics, how Peter has lost his mind, how Matt is going to be combing the city night after night looking for Derek, how Derek killed Theo and what a fuck up that was, how all of this is because Derek has invested himself in the safety of a stupid eighteen year old street kid. 

But they don't have anything else to talk about. Derek thinks he would start screaming and punching his fist through one of Lydia's windows if she tried to bring any of it up, and she's perceptive, so she doesn't. They just sit in silence and watch ambulances come and go. 

By the time Erica has emancipated herself, the sun is coming up. She's limping down the pavement, looking annoyed out of her fucking skull, and it only gets worse when she spots Lydia's car pulling up alongside her. For a moment, she honest to god turns her nose up and just keeps right on limping her way downtown, and Lydia sighs through her nose as she slowly presses on the gas to follow along beside her. 

She rolls the window down. “Erica, get in.” 

“Fuck off.” 

“You're not going to walk home like that.” 

“I can, and I will.” 

Lydia growls something under her breath, but keeps rolling alongside her. “It's three miles minimum to your apartment from here, and you look like you're an extra in The Walking Dead. Just get in the fucking car.” 

The two of them are forced to watch more of Erica's painful staggering, until finally, she freezes and lifts her eyes to the sky. She says something to herself that neither Lydia or Derek can catch, and then she rips open the back door and climbs her way inside, looking pissed off about it. 

“For the record,” she begins, digging around in her purse and coming up with her pack of cigarettes, “I have nothing to say to either of you.” 

Derek would be fine with that. Only, he knows better. 

“Especially not _you_ , Derek,” she goes on around the cigarette in her mouth. She lights up, rolls down her window, and is silent again for only, at most, ten seconds. “I should really come up to the front and beat the hell out of you, but I'm stitched, I'm on pain meds, you can lick my ass.” Probably, they wanted to keep Erica for at least another twenty-four hours. Getting shot isn't like cutting your arm open accidentally and getting a few stitches. But, being asked to sit and stay in that hospital room, no matter how well-intentioned the nurses all mean it, is pretty much code for _stay here until the police come in and question you_. And none of them can afford that. 

“Okay,” Derek says, while Lydia drives on without a word. Erica puffs on her cigarette and glares out the window, streetlights casting shadows across her face, and then she opens her mouth again. Derek palms his forehead, but figures this is a conversation they likely need to have, so he doesn't stop her when she starts yelling again. 

“I'm sitting here with a literal bullet wound because of you,” she snaps, and Derek nods his head. 

“Or, you're sitting there with a literal bullet wound because Theo came over to Hale territory -”

“Oh, for the love of fuck!” Erica angrily exhales some smoke through her nose, and then makes a valiant effort at leaning forward to get closer into Derek's face. She winces halfway through, however, and then settles for leaning back and gesturing with her lit cigarette in Derek's direction. “You're starting to sound just like him, you know.” 

“Like who?”

“Peter. All this talk about Hale territory and how it was _the right thing_ to do. It's like you're a broken record of each other!” 

Derek can stand for a lot of abuse, from Erica in specific. They've gotten into more fights than anyone else has, and that's even including more fights than he's had with Laura, spanning their entire lives from childhood and beyond. But one thing he cannot and will not fucking stand for is being compared in any way shape or form to Peter. It makes his blood boil. 

Annoyed beyond all belief, he turns around and faces Erica head on – Lydia was right, she does look like a zombie come back to life. She's got blood matted into her hair from a surface level wound on her head, her dress is ripped and in shambles, and her eyes are wild, make up smeared, lips a grim line. Derek ignores all of it, because he's seen her in even worse sorts than this, and trailblazes onward. “I know you think that I've lost my mind and joined forces with Peter -”

“Because you _have_.” 

“...but did you not listen to a fucking word that Matt and I said to each other in there tonight? Did you?” 

Erica opens her mouth to retort that, probably something that isn't even fucking related, but Derek talks over her until she shuts the hell up. 

“I didn't kill Theo for no reason, Erica. And I didn't do it under Peter's orders, or to start a fucking turf war. You _know_ me. You know I wouldn't do that.” 

She purses her lips, and then takes a drag, looking out the window. Something akin to shame crosses her face, but then is gone, quickly replaced with indignance and anger. “I _thought_ I knew -”

“Theo was going to kill Stiles. All right?” 

Erica clamps her mouth shut and blinks at him. Before the silence can get too long, or too heavy, Derek continues. 

“He was going to fucking cut his arms off and leave him to die in that alley. So I killed him before he got the chance. That's what Matt was talking about, that's why I nearly fucking shot him in there. Do you understand?” 

She looks a little put off by the information, as though she isn't sure where she's supposed to go from here. This throws a wrench in the entire reason she was so angry at Derek to begin with, but she's been shot and she's cranky, so she's still angry anyway, with little to no source for the emotion other than her physical pain. She clears her throat, and doesn't meet Derek's eyes. “Why would Theo want to kill Stiles?” 

Derek turns back to face forwards, leaning back in his seat. They're stopped at a red light now, the glow of it casting Lydia's hands on the steering wheel in red, Derek's legs just the same. “To get to me.” 

“ _Why_?” 

“They wanted to start all of this just like Peter did.” He puts his head in his hands, just for a second, thinking about how massively he fucked up by ever letting Peter know he gave a shit about Stiles, and then sits back up and rubs his jaw. “They wanted to kill Stiles, and make me angry, so I'd kill one of them, and it would start.” 

He doesn't look back, but he can feel Erica's eyes on him, boring through the back of his skull. “They didn't know Theo would die.” 

“They didn't know I would be there that night.” 

“Holy shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“You really care _that much_ about -”

“Erica, just -” Derek shakes his head, because he can't with that tonight, he just fucking can't. “I killed Theo over it. Let's just leave it at that.” 

Erica goes quiet, pensive in the backseat as she thinks over everything that she's just been told, and everything that just happened. It all makes sense, of course it does, but it must be taking her a little while to wrap her brain around all the details – everything that she thought was the truth has just been flipped on its head a bit, after all. 

Finally, right as they're pulling into the parking lot for her apartment complex, she leans forward. “Peter wouldn't have done that. What you did.” 

It's as close to an apology from Erica as he's ever going to get, so he takes it and nods his head. No, Peter never would've done anything like that. Even if he'd have seen Theo drag Stiles into that alley, he'd have let it all transpire, let Theo hack him up into pieces, just for the sake of it. Then, he would've used it to start the war anyway. As much bloodshed as he can get, he'll take. 

Derek's not like that, is what Erica means.


	7. Chapter 7

Derek lives in a state of near constant alert, even more than he did to begin with. Even though he might've seen this coming, he's still human, and he fears death like any other person walking around out there. As much as the kids Matt keeps sending by the dozens into Hale territory do. Derek has passed a few of them before, as he's driving around in the middle of the night – not once has he had it in him to fire at any single one of them. The looks on their faces, the shifty way they glare around the streets as they walk, hand suspiciously trailing over the piece they shove into the front of their pants – they might as well have neon signs over their heads.

It's like Matt isn't even training them to do what he wants them to. He just keeps sending them, more, and more, like he has a neverending supply over there. High school kids. Middle school kids. They don't know how dangerous a person like Derek is, to them, and it's not fair for Derek to take advantage of it. Fuck what Peter says, he thinks. He's not going to kill a thirteen year old. 

Erica does what she's asked. So does Laura. He sees it in their faces every time they meet in the mornings after long, hot nights. 

The streets feel endless, like all there is in the world is the same forty mile radius of buildings, circling around one another until the woods overtake into the freeway. It sometimes seems like the highways out of town lead to absolutely nowhere, as though if any one of them tried to get out of here they'd find nothing on the other side of that mountain but a cliff. The only options are to stay and live here or to dive off the other end into nothing. Derek doesn't know which is preferable. 

“How long can we do this?” Laura asks one sleepless afternoon, wiping sweat off of her forehead as she glares down the street, to where police cars and an ambulance are blocking off the road. “How many of those kids does he have?” 

“It seems like a lot.” Derek grimaces into the sunlight through his sunglasses, leaning back against the wall. He watches as the grim-faced, exhausted looking police officers congregate in a semi-circle, rubbing their eyes and shaking their heads. 

“I can't keep doing this. It feels like it just doesn't end. As many as we kill, another ten crop up.” 

Two feet away from where the familiar deputy Parrish is hovering, there's a dead body. Laura didn't claim ownership over this one, and Erica isn't talking either, but he's more than positive a Hale bullet will be pried out of her head on an operating table. He guesses it doesn't matter who did it, at the end of the day. 

“They haven't killed any of us,” her voice is low, so anyone who's standing gathered in the middle of the street, hands over their eyes to catch a glimpse of the body with that morbid curiosity humans have, won't be able to overhear them. “You know how many Hale people they've managed to actually kill?” 

Derek sighs, looking away as the body gets bagged. Some of her hair gets caught in the zipper, shining blonde in the sunlight. “Thirteen.” All of them on Raeken territory. None of the Raekens who have crossed the line have managed to kill any official Hale personnel, though they've managed a random street rat every now and again. 

“You know how many Raekens we've killed?” 

It's a number he doesn't much like thinking about, but it's hard to ignore when the television flashes it in front of his face inside of every diner he walks into, when it gets shouted on radio stations, written in thick black ink on newspaper stands. 

“Thirty seven,” Laura whispers when Derek doesn't answer, and he nods his head. Yeah. Thirty seven. The overwhelming majority under the age of eighteen. It's a drop in the ocean, when compared with the population of Beacon Hills as a city at large, but it has to be some kind of a fucking dent in the ranks of Matt's regime. “What's he trying to do? Get it up to an even fifty?” 

The ratio alone should be enough to discourage Matt from keeping it up – there's no way he's purposefully losing this horribly. Does he think that he'll eventually make a break through? Derek can't imagine any sane person could think so, at this point in the game, but then again, Matt isn't.

“Peter cancelling morning meetings is another thing,” she hisses. “Like he doesn't give a shit if any of us die in the night or not.” 

He might legitimately not care, in all honesty. It wouldn't surprise Derek in the least. 

Down the street, Parrish catches sight of them, squinting at them in the sunlight. Derek, he definitely recognizes, though Derek doesn't know if he'd be able to recognize Laura on sight. Maybe just from the resemblances between them. Either way, he just stares for a moment, before pursing his lips and looking away. He says something to one of his fellow deputies, and then he's walking towards them. 

It makes sense. It's a Hale killing, unofficial yet but with this pattern who the hell else could have done this, and there's two Hales lurking on the outskirts of the crime scene. He won't find anything, of course not, but he might drag the two of them in for questioning and waste a couple hours of his own time.

Neither Derek nor Laura move to walk away, even as he advances. There's no point. 

“You think he's going to keep going until he has no lackeys left?” 

“Yes,” Derek answers without thinking. “He won't think he's lost until then.” Nevermind the fact that he already has – and so fantastically Derek would laugh, if it wasn't so fucking horrifying. 

Parrish comes to a stop a safe two or three feet away from where they're standing, leaning back against a run down old bakery that's been selling lemonade out of a stand for fifty cents a cup ever since the temperature went above a hundred degrees for the first time this season. He gives Derek nearly the same exact look that he'd given him when Derek came to pick Stiles up that one night – Christ, that seems forever ago, now. 

“I guess you Hales think you're untouchable enough to stand less than a hundred feet away from a crime scene in broad daylight.” 

Derek blinks at him from behind his sunglasses, and Laura rolls her eyes. “If either of us killed her, we wouldn't be standing here.” 

“I can take you in on suspicion alone. You know that.” 

“Fine by me,” Derek shrugs. “I've got nothing to hide.” 

The deputy slides his eyes to Laura, who just meets his eyes and raises her eyebrows – like _do it_. After another moment passes, he looks away, up into the sunlight with a frown. “People are starting to call this the neverending summer. It just doesn't let up. I've been asked to pull Hales down to the station just to ask them to consider a god damn negotiation, if only to end the madness.” 

“That's not going to work,” Laura huffs under her breath. 

“That's what I said.” 

“I mean, on our side.” She straightens away from the wall, bumping into Derek's shoulder as she does so. “The cops always look for Hales before they look for Raekens. Why is that?” 

Parrish puts his hands on his utility belt, maybe as a threat, maybe not, but either way, it doesn't work. “More than half the people in that group are under eighteen.” 

“Huh. You don't say.” Derek gestures to the scene down the block, and Parrish doesn't even blink. 

“Plus, it's easier to work with people who seem at least close to some modicum of sanity.” 

Derek can't help it – he snorts. Parrish wouldn't be wrong about that, not in the least bit, but it's just funny to hear that the cops have caught onto that shit. “So, you're standing here to ask us to consider a ceasefire. Even though you just said you knew it wouldn't work.” 

“Yeah, well, I'm at the point where I'd _beg_ if I thought it would work. My men don't sleep, we've got the phones ringing off the hook with scared people seeing Raeken kids walking down the streets in their neighborhoods, and there are shootouts in the produce section of a fucking grocery store.” 

As many times as the bridge has been a problem before, it never gets any less ridiculous that it wound up being a _grocery store_ that got built on top of that lot. It couldn't have been a gun emporium, could it have? Or even a head shop. Just something less mundane, so Derek can stop hearing about how the tomatoes were filled with bullet casings that had to be meticulously picked out. Again. It's something that would be funny, if only it could be funny.

“Are you going to arrest us?” Laura sounds bored. 

Parrish rubs his jaw and stares them down for another several seconds. He can't do anything with them but take them in, and again, it'd be a waste of his time. He at least seems to know that, from the way his shoulders droop under the weight of yet another murder in his jurisdiction that he can't drag a perp in for. It must be hard, when you're standing a few feet away from two people who have _certainly_ killed people, who have committed crime after crime after crime, but that you can't even fucking touch because you can't prove it. All Parrish has is their family name, and it's not enough for an official arrest. 

“No,” he says with finality. With that, he turns around and heads back towards the scene, where the rest of his coworkers are still milling around, probably wondering what the hell they're even supposed to do anymore. Their job might be starting to feel nominal. 

“Neverending summer,” Laura repeats in a mocking tone of voice, scoffing. “God, I hope not.” 

It has to end at some point. It just won't be very pretty, at all. 

“Are you gonna get some sleep?” She asks – the cops are all loading into their respective cars, the ambulance turning its lights on, the mob of people breaking apart to walk down the street murmuring to one another. 

“I can't sleep,” Derek says. He hasn't tried yet, not since yesterday, but he just knows. With everything on his mind, and the threat of his nightmares...yeah, he can't fucking sleep. 

Laura nods, because she understands that just as well as Derek does. “Eat something, at least,” she says with a nudge to his side with her elbow. It's probably the most familial they've been with each other in months, maybe even since Talia died. Ever since then, the two of them don't speak. Or, more specifically, they don't speak about anything that isn't work, and Peter, and all of this fucking mess they've gone and found themselves in. Derek doesn't know much about Laura's personal life, these days, or if she even has one. She could say the same for him. 

It's this thought that has him reaching out to gently put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it and hoping it's some form of condolence, for her. She smiles at him tightly, but it doesn't reach her eyes. It's fucked up, their entire lives. Nothing is going to fix or change that. 

Later on that same night, Derek is on foot. Mostly he keeps to his car because he can cover more ground, see more, etcetera – but it also means his options are to fire out his window if need be or...that about sums it up. And tonight, Derek has a plan other than the _shoot on sight_ Peter has been repeatedly drilling into their heads for the last two and a half weeks. 

He wants to catch one of these god damn Raeken kids. He doesn't even really worry about getting shot by one of them by having his guard down. Half of them probably can't fire a gun accurately to save their lives. Worst case scenario, he gets a badly aimed bullet in the arm and punches a fourteen year old in the face for it. Best case, he corners them and harasses them for any information they can give him about their fearless leader. 

Even Theo wasn't this fucking insane, he thinks, walking down the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets. If Theo were still alive, and still in power, he'd at least delegate somewhat. Send older people who actually know what they're doing onto the front lines, instead of using his expendable fodder just so he can feel like he's doing something. 

Matt, on the other hand, could give a fuck. As many of these kids get killed, he doesn't care. He has more, he always has more. It means nothing to him. Derek wants to know what he tells them, how he possibly can convince any more of them to do this for him, when it evidently is a death wish. Christ, don't any of them watch the news? 

This is an angle Peter hasn't even taken the time to consider yet – but getting information out of one of these kids would probably only help them in the long run. So, he walks. 

The streets are eerily quiet, in a deeply foreboding way that suggests that something bad is about to happen. Something bad is about to happen, the question is just where, to who, on which street. There's hardly anyone else out and about at this time of night, and those that are walk quickly into homes or businesses, vanishing inside the light. People even drive faster, engines roaring through stop signs the only real sound echoing against the high buildings of the center of Hale territory. 

He runs into a couple of Stiles' peers, leaning against street signs or lamp posts, blinking at him as he walks past. None of them directly ask him if he wants anything, a bump or whatever the hell else, maybe because even if they need the money, they don't love the prospect of having to deal with strangers as much as they used to. Smart, Derek thinks. He hopes Stiles is out there doing much of the same. 

Somewhere around the slum district, by the bakery that got shut down and now sits as a hollowed out shell and one of the mini mart gas stations, he catches sight of a raccoon. It's novel enough that he pays it a bit of attention as it scavenges around in a trash bin, picking up an old slice of pizza in between its paws and waddling off down an alley on two legs to munch at it where it won't be bothered. 

He watches it go, amused. It's distracting enough, unbelievably, that he doesn't notice someone coming up behind him until they're right on top of him. 

A bony but strong forearm wraps itself around his neck, and his kneejerk reaction is to reach for his piece – but another arm grabs his hand and _twists_ his arm behind his back, hard enough that he lets out a shout that echoes a bit into the quiet night air. He struggles, trying to reach his free arm around to his hip, but it's no use. He's bodily dragged against the wall, face first, his cheek slammed into the brick so that his teeth click together and he feels scrapes and cuts pooling with blood. 

Like this, he thinks he has a better shot of getting his gun – he tries it, and almost as soon as he's moved, he hears the unmistakable and threatening click of something against the back of his head. 

“Try it.” 

It's a woman's voice. He's never heard it before, but he has a memory of Matt's new second, her face and her body language, and thinks that the voice suits her just about right. He drops his hand back down to his side and breathes out a sigh. He's definitely about to get fucking killed. 

“I don't want to kill you,” or maybe not. “I could, but I don't want to.” 

“Okay,” Derek says. What the hell else is he supposed to say? 

“I just have a message for you.” This should be fun. Whenever someone points a gun at a person's head touting about _having a message_ , nine times out of ten, that message is not a good one. No, it's decidedly a bad fucking message. Derek shifts his face against the bricks and rolls his eyes. “Matt sends his regards.” 

“Oh, boy.” 

“Maybe you shouldn't be so fucking cavalier with a gun pressed to the back of your head.” 

“You just said -”

“I just said I don't _want_ to kill you. I can, and I will, but it would just make my job a little less fun than I'd like it to be.” 

“The point, please.” 

She moves just enough to the side so that Derek can make out her face in the dim lighting from the street light across the way – it's Jennifer, all right. She's got her hair pulled up into a tight ponytail, mouth twisted into the same smile Matt is always doling out, cruel and unforgiving. “Surprised to see me?” 

“I guess I was just hoping you got caught in the crossfire that night at the warehouse.” 

She presses the gun harder into his skull, so hard it hurts, and Derek huffs. “Too bad for you. Let's cut to the chase.” 

_Yes, let's_. He's going to have the lines between the bricks imprinted on his face for hours, if she keeps this shit up. 

“That little fucking whore you've gotten yourself so infatuated with has caused this entire mess to begin with, wouldn't you agree?” 

Derek's blood turns to ice. He feels it slowly drain out of his face, until he feels cold with the loss, and he abruptly stops struggling so much. Jennifer feels this, and laughs. 

“You killed Theo just to protect him. Is that right?” 

Derek swallows. “Yes.” 

“How fucking pathetic.” 

“What does he have to do with -”

“He's your Achille's heel, of course. So, like I said. I _could_ kill you, and Matt _could_ kill you, but that just wouldn't be as much fun as slicing up your little friend -”

Derek tries to pull his arm free from her grip, tries to use his other to somehow grab her even with the awkward angle, and again, she presses her gun so deep into his skin it has to be drawing blood. He stops, knows it's futile, and grits his teeth. “If you even fucking think about -”

“Oh, we've thought about it. You know what we're going to do to him once we get our hands on him?” 

“ _Don't_ -”

She leans close, so her mouth is almost touching his cheek, his ear, her nose pressed into his hair. “We're going to rip him apart and make you watch. End of message.” 

With that, she's off of him. The gun is taken away, his arm drops down limp at his side, and not a single part of her is touching him anymore. He jerks back and away from the wall, dizzy and lightheaded, and immediately grabs for his gun. 

He rips it out, points it in her general direction, but she's already gone. The block is empty – she's not to the left, to the right, in front, or behind him. It's like she's vanished into thin fucking air, which is likely what she was going for. 

Derek's hands are shaking. He stands there for maybe a minute, heart pounding in his chest, ears ringing so loud he can't hardly hear anything, not even the wind. He can still feel Jennifer's breath in the shell of his ear, can still hear those words ringing and ringing, again and again in his head, can _see_ what it would look like - 

He fumbles in his pocket for his phone, pulling it out and speed dialing Lydia's number. She answers on the first ring, like she always does, and he says, “I need you to come pick me up, now, _right now_ -”

The line goes dead. 

He stands there in the street, gun hanging limply from his hand, and he doesn't move, not an inch. A car or two passes in the time he's waiting, but he hardly notices them. That was not an empty threat. It wasn't. Matt doesn't _do_ empty threats, and it seems like Jennifer doesn't either. If they say they're going to do something, they're not just taunting him for the sake of it. 

They would do it. They will, if they get to him. What the exact specifications of _rip him apart_ means, holy fuck, Derek never wants to find out – even as his mind supplies many unwelcome images of what that would look like. He realizes then this his initial plan for the night had just been a waste of time. It doesn't matter if he talks to any of those kids Matt is sending out to Hale territory, it really doesn't. Derek has all the information he needs, now. 

It must be only five minutes, maybe even less, until Lydia's blue car screeches to a stop right beside him. The passenger window rolls down to reveal Erica, blinking out at him with an annoyed expression on her face. “What the hell are you doing standing there with your fucking gun out?” 

Derek ignores her in favor of half running to the car, pulling the door open and climbing inside. Lydia turns back to look at him, her brow furrowed with worry. “We have to – you have to help me find Stiles. Have you seen him?” 

She catches onto the frantic lilt to his voice instantaneously, and doesn't ask any questions of her own, even when Erica is clearly brimming with the desire to know what the fuck is going on. “Not today. Yesterday night.” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses, dropping his piece onto the seat beside him and rubbing his face up and down. 

“He's almost always in the usual spots. We can drive to each and see if we can -”

“I don't have time for that.” 

“Is there another option?” Sometimes, it's annoying how fucking calm she can be even in the face of shit like this; now is not an exception. He feels like punching the back of Erica's seat, or the window, or just _something_. 

He's about to just start yelling, which wouldn't get him anywhere but out of favor with the girls, and then he remembers the card Stiles had given him. He had never planned on using it except for in the case of a dire emergency – and seeing as how this might just be one, he doesn't have a choice. He pulls his wallet out of his pocket and flips through the money until he finds it wedged in between a twenty a ten. 

Pulling it out, he grimaces for a second. Lydia and Erica look at it and then share a look with one another. “Is that -”

“Yes,” he says, dialing the number into his phone. 

It rings, and rings, and rings, and Derek starts thinking that whoever it is isn't going to answer. Which is just bad business, Derek thinks, and also fucking frustrating to the point where he wants to fire a warning shot up into the hood of Lydia's car. Which, again, would not be received well. 

Finally, at maybe the last ring before it would've gone to voicemail, a rusty voice picks up. “Yeah?” 

This guy sounds like he smokes ten packs of cigarettes a day and spends his time on the couch drinking whiskey straight watching Sports Center. It might be entirely accurate. Derek doesn't have the time to sit and stew and get all fucking hysterical about Stiles working with someone like this, what that job entails even, so he just cuts right to it. “I need to know where Stiles is.” 

“Stiles...” he repeats the name like he literally doesn't recognize it – and Derek thinks _Stiles, if you wrote the fucking number down wrong I will throw all of your cards into the god damn Pacific Ocean_. Then, thankfully, he goes on. “Tall? Dark hair? Freckles?” 

“ _Yes_.” 

There's a pause, some shuffling of papers on the other line. Someone laughing in the background. Derek starts jiggling his leg, up and down, up and down, in perfect tandem. “Should be on the corner of 10th and Monroe.” 

The line cuts off before Derek even has a chance to hang up himself. Honestly, he had been expecting something a little more from the guy – all the times he envisioned himself using this number, he'd thought...well, he doesn't know what he thought. He guesses the man's entire job is just telling people where his employees are and collecting half their money, nothing more, nothing less. 

Derek directs Lydia on where to go, and it's not far. Maybe three miles or so away from where they are right now. She pulls off the curb and drives fast, and Derek can't, _cannot_ , just sit in the backseat watching the buildings go past, waiting and waiting and waiting, so he starts talking. 

“I made a mistake admitting that Stiles meant anything to me,” he begins, finally shoving his gun back into its holster before rubbing at his eyes. 

“You have made that mistake many, many times before. As I've said,” Lydia drawls, taking a right turn sharp. 

“They want to kill him. Jesus fucking Christ.” 

“That sounds about right,” Erica pipes up, and Derek wants to kick the back of her seat hard enough for her to feel it. “Seems like the only way of getting to you that doesn't involve one of us.” 

It is. It really, really is. Not only is it the only other way, it's also the only _easy_ way. Stiles is a walking target, out there on the streets with no one and nothing to protect him night in and night out. He might as well be a fucking red flag in a bull pen. 

“That's what people do when they're desperate, you know?” She goes on, rolling down her window again so the summer night's breeze blows in across all their faces, tossing her hair around. “Matt is definitely, definitely desperate. It's a good sign he's resorting to petty shit like this.” When she turns around and catches the murderous glare Derek is giving her, she shrinks back a bit. “Well. Not a _good_ sign.” 

She's right, no matter how much it fucking sucks. If Matt has to go around threatening eighteen year old street kids, then he's desperate for something, anything, to get a leg up on. Stiles is easy. It might be the only thing he has going for him, right now. 

They pull up to the corner where the stranger on the other end of the phone said he would be, and thank _fuck_ , Stiles is standing there. He's not alone – there's a man waving a twenty dollar bill in his face, Stiles' lips in a grim smile, and Derek is about to leap out and handle it himself when Erica holds her hand up. 

“I'll fucking get him, you psychopath,” she snaps, climbing out of the car and slamming the door behind her. That's probably a good idea – with the mental state that Derek's in, he's not so sure that he wouldn't just start shooting on principle. 

She approaches the two of them, and Stiles looks at her quizzically, like he's never seen anyone like her before in his life. He's never seen _her_ in his life at all, and also, Derek can't imagine he gets approached by very many women when he's working this specific job. Maybe a few, here and there. The other man appears to try and tell her to go fuck herself, to which she responds by leaning forward and saying something threatening enough that he darts back a step or two. He looks between Stiles and her again and again, trying to decide what's worth it, and eventually makes the choice to sprint off in the other direction down the street. 

Stiles stands there looking annoyed. He says something to Erica, and from the partiuclar expression he has on his face Derek knows it's along the lines of _what the fuck do you think you're doing_. Erica ignores his bitching in favor of grabbing him by his shoulder and then starts hauling him off towards the car.

He struggles at first, like any smart person would. But, when he takes in the details of the specific car – the color and the girl sitting in the driver's seat, he just slumps and rolls his eyes. He's close enough when he mutters _for fuck's sake_ that Derek can hear it muffled through the windows. 

Erica opens up the door and dumps him unceremoniously into the backseat, legs sprawling half out the car, arms struggling to get him righted. Once he's sitting like an actual person, he turns, catches sight of Derek, and gives him a very familiar _fuck off_ look. 

“Are you _kidding_ me with this?” 

Even in spite of the way that Stiles is looking at him right now – like he's two steps away from punching Derek square in the jaw - Derek is so relieved to see him outside of his nightmares and his visions of Matt cutting his arms off, to see him whole, in one piece, no bruises or cuts on him anywhere, that he can't help himself. He slides across the leather of the backseat and pulls Stiles flush against his chest, wrapping his arms around him and pressing his chin onto Stiles' shoulder. 

“Whoa,” Stiles laughs, breath ghosting across Derek's cheek and neck. He sounds a little freaked out, as he rightly should be, but he hugs back all the same. He smells like cheap deoderant, cigarette smoke, and maybe a little bit like hotel room shampoo, so not the best, but Derek can't think anything but _thank fucking God_ at having Stiles here, alive, where Derek can protect him. “What's up?”

Derek pulls back, moving his hands to put them on Stiles' shoulders, and looks him in the face. Stiles has wide eyes, like he's frightened, but his lips are curved up into an incredulous smile as he stares back at Derek and waits for some kind of explanation as to why he's just been pulled off his corner. “You can't be out on the streets anymore,” he says without preamble, and Stiles' reaction is predictable.

He rolls his eyes back into his head, scoffing. “Oh, really? Again with this? I'm not -”

“Stiles.” He puts as much authority into his voice as possible, with just enough of an edge of to let Stiles know how _serious_ he is about this – and for the first time, Stiles shuts his mouth. He takes in the scene, from Derek's bloody cheek, the probably crazed look in his eyes, all the way to Erica and Lydia sitting in the front, watching this with shrewd gazes. “You're in trouble.” 

Stiles swallows, and forces a smile onto his face. “Am I ever not?” He sounds nervous.

“I need you to come and stay with me for a while,” it surprises even himself as it's coming out of his mouth. He hadn't thought much about what he would do with Stiles once he got ahold of him, or if he even did – all he had been thinking about when he went looking for him was just making sure he was still alive out there. 

Stiles blinks, widening his eyes in surprise. “I...” he looks like he hardly knows what to say to that. In a way, Derek can't blame him for his hesitation. Being asked to go and stay with a criminal on the far end of town where the pavement meets the woods, especially when you're eighteen years old and scared all the time, would make anyone else nervous as well. At the same time, Derek can't afford to argue the pros and cons with Stiles. Now now. 

The fact of the matter is that Derek can't leave him to the shelter. He can't leave him to Scott. He can't leave him with anyone. If Matt wants him dead, then he'll do anything he possibly can to get his hands on Stiles, come hell or high water. The only option, the only one, is if Stiles is in Derek's heavily secured apartment, with the body guards and the passwords and the bullet proof windows – it might be the only place in the city where Stiles would actually be _safe_. 

“You're scaring the shit out of me,” is what Stiles finally says, again shifting his eyes to where Lydia is hard-eyeing him from the front seat. “I'm not – I can't just – I've got a job, you know. The streets are where I -” He's going to argue. Of course he is. It wouldn't be Stiles if he didn't argue at least a little bit. 

Derek presses his palm against the side of Stiles' neck, digs his fingers into the hairs at the base of his skull. It's as though he's checking yet again that Stiles is _here_ , unharmed, bright eyed. Stiles doesn't push the hand away himself or tell Derek to get off of him, let him go – but Stiles likely doesn't say that to anyone, no matter what they do to him. Derek pulls his hand away and drops it down into his lap, and Stiles maps the movement with his eyes, face unreadable. 

“Please,” Derek says. In his own ears, his voice sounds oddly small, and inconsequential. But Stiles must be able to hear something else inside of it that Derek just can't, because he purses his lips, and nods. _Okay._

Derek feels like slumping down against Stiles' body in relief. All else aside, he honestly believes that he wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he just left Stiles out there on his own to deal with a mess that Derek created – let alone get even a single wink of sleep. 

That moment ends pretty quickly when Stiles grabs him by his upper arm and meets his eyes. He's crossed between emotions again, fear, anxiety, anger, annoyance, all of it stuffed into his eyes and the set of his jaw. “Tell me what's going on,” he demands, trying to sound like he means business, as though he won't go anywhere until he gets his answers. 

Derek rubs his eyes. Where to even start?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is weirdly shorter than the rest, only because it had to be for there to be thirteen and I really wanted thirteen chapters lmfao

Stiles insisted on stopping by Scott's before going over to Derek's place. He had claimed that he sometimes kept some of his things there in Scott's locker in the backroom whenever he didn't have anyplace else to put any of it (so, in summation whenever he'd wind up homeless again). Derek didn't know what he had expected Stiles to come loafing back outside of the bar with in his hands, but he certainly wasn't expecting something as normal as an actual backpack, looking relatively full. He looks like he's about to run off to math class, and something about the image of it makes Derek nearly laugh. 

Plus, Derek has long assumed that Stiles barely owned anything anymore, but when he climbs back into Lydia's car, he dumps the backpack in the middle of the seat between himself and Derek and it lands with a heavy _thump_. 

“What's in that?” Derek asks. It sounds like rocks. 

Leaning back in his seat, Stiles shrugs. “Odds and ends.” 

There's a pause as Lydia starts the car again, and it lasts all the way through the U-turn she pulls, until they're out on the main road heading towards Derek's apartment. “It's not your _stash_ , is it?” 

Stiles looks at him, amusement written all over his face, like he's about to burst into hysterical laughter at any second. “Even if it were, it's not like you're taking me to fucking Disneyland.” 

That's a good point. If there's anywhere a person should feel free and safe to take their product and blood money to, it would be Derek Hale's apartment. Still, Derek eyes the backpack warily the entire ride through the city, even while Stiles does little more than sit and stare out the window as the buildings and trees pass him by. 

Once they're inside, Derek can't help but compare this to the last time Stiles was here. Last time, he was shaking and covered in blood, standing stock still with his eyes glazed over. Tonight, he beelines it for the couch the second that Derek gets the door open, thumps his bag down on top of the coffee table, and dumps himself into the cushions. 

Derek closes the door behind them, watching as Stiles pulls a pillow into his lap and immediately begins pawing around for the remote control to start binge watching television, most likely. 

“We never got to watch Netflix last time,” he says, jabbing his thumb down on the power button. The sound starts up before the picture, so the two of them are forced to sit there listening to a woman talk about diamond rings on the home shopping network for a second while staring at nothing but a black screen. “I watch these ladies all the time,” Stiles tells him, almost like it's a secret, as soon as a blonde woman comes into view. “It's good three in the morning programming.” 

“Have you ever bought anything?”

“Yes,” Stiles says, deadpan. “With my pretend Barbie credit card, I bought a diamond bumble bee brooch.” 

He sits there and watches the rings glitter underneath the studio lights for another moment, and he does look genuinely engrossed by it. Probably, it's a nice thing to fall asleep to when you're all alone in a motel room, while there's gunshots going off down the street – nothing but material things, nice-voiced women talking gently at you about cashmere and jewelry. 

“Hey, can we get a pizza?” He tilts his neck back so his head drapes over the back of the couch upside down, blinking with a lazy grin at Derek. “I can go halfsies.” 

Derek takes in the sight of him, from the carefree smile on his face to the way he's got his feet propped up on the coffee table. He, for one, looks like he thinks there's nothing wrong in the world now that he has a soft couch and a television in front of him, the prospect of pizza somewhere on the horizon. It's more than a little unsettling, in Derek's mind. “You seem surprisingly relaxed, for someone who's just been told a murderer is looking for him.” 

Stiles huffs out a sigh and lifts his head back up, staring pointedly at the television. Images of brightly colored sweaters light up his face, his eyes, and he sighs a second time in a row before he responds. “It's not like it's the first time someone's been _looking_ for me,” he mutters, though he tries to sound casual about it, like it doesn't even bother him anymore.

Derek hesitates, and then, he clears his throat. “Who else?” 

“Why?” Stiles snorts, shaking his head. “So you can go find them and, like, punch their eyeballs to the back of their brains or something?” 

The imagery is disgusting and infantile, but Derek doesn't see the point in denying it anymore. Stiles has watched Derek theoretically punch people's eyeballs to the back of their brains in his name enough times by now that there's not much he can use to argue the point. Stiles knows that Derek would do pretty much whatever he could to keep Stiles safe. 

Derek just wishes he knew how Stiles felt about that. Right now, he seems cavalier, like it's a throwaway detail more than it is anything else. But Derek wants him to feel...well. Derek doesn't know what he wants Stiles to feel. Mostly, he hasn't let himself think about that, and now is no exception. 

“I just meant it's not that much of a change from the dredgery,” Stiles continues, looking back over his shoulder to meet Derek's eyes where he's still standing off in the middle of the foyer. “Someone trying to kill me, someone trying to punch me, someone trying to steal all my stuff...whatever. It's part of my life. You learn to kinda compartmentalize. You should know about that.” 

Derek nods his head. “I do know about that.” 

Meeting his eyes, Stiles shrugs his shoulders like _what can you do_? Nothing, really. Neither of them can do anything to get themselves out of the situations they've gotten themselves into, except to ride it out and see it through until the end. At least now, they don't have to be alone. 

“Are we gonna get the pizza?” He pushes, pulling the take-out menu from the place down the street off the coffee table and waving it in the air. “I'm _starving_.” 

Derek orders the pizza down to Stiles' exact specifications and pays for it himself, even when Stiles tries to push his own crumpled up dollar bills in Derek's direction to go _halfsies_ on the thing. He looks annoyed after the fact for a few minutes, chewing on his first slice and shooting Derek dirty looks every couple of seconds from his spot on the couch. Once he's deep into his second slice, though, he seems to have forgotten whatever it was he was mad about and just gorges himself through to a third. 

He eats like he's never going to eat again, which must be a by-product of living the way he does. Derek can't imagine what it would be like to have to live meal to meal like that, knowing that whatever he eats at the time could be the last thing he'll eat for at least another entire day. He for one makes it through two slices and calls it a night, and then Stiles points at what's left in the box after his third and asks if Derek's going to eat any of it. 

Derek shakes his head no, and then half-watches Stiles eat and half-watches the television in front of them. It's still the home shopping network, and Stiles observes it as though he's really interested. It must be a comfort thing. 

After all the food is gone, nothing but a half eaten slice that Stiles physically couldn't finish sitting in the box on the coffee table, Stiles looks like he's about to fall asleep. He's spread out on the couch, head deep enough in the cushions that Derek has to lean forward to even see his face, eyes drooping. 

Derek should let him get some rest. 

Instead, he leans over the cushions that Stiles has pillowed around his head and stares down at him. “You ripped up the newspaper on my fridge,” he says, just accusatory enough that there's an edge to his voice. 

Stiles sinks down deeper, trying to bury himself if only to get away from this conversation. He doesn't speak for a few seconds, pursing his lips together and not meeting Derek's eyes. When he does, his voice is small. “I didn't _rip it up_ ,” he hedges. 

“You took a pretty big chunk out of it.” 

“See,” Stiles sits up abruptly, nearly banging his forehead into Derek's chin in the process before Derek leans back into his own half of the couch. “I would've thought you'd figured out who I was, by now.” 

“Who you _are_?” 

Stiles gives him a look, like he doesn't quite believe that Derek could possibly be this much of a fucking idiot. Which is unfair, because Derek doesn't see what he's being such an _idiot_ about – the question is bizarre, as Derek sees it. He knows who Stiles is. There's not that much to know. At Derek's damning silence, Stiles huffs out a breath and pulls at where his bag is sitting by their feet. He unzips the front pocket, revealing a lighter or two, a pack of cigarettes, and an old worn down leather wallet. It looks like it's been through the wash a few times, cracked into two different shades of the same color brown. 

He opens it up, and as expected there's no money inside of it. There's his driver's license, which he thumbs aside, his Beacon Hills High School student ID, which he thumbs aside, and then finally, a scrap of newspaper. There's a pause for him to hesitate, and then he furrows his brow and picks the thing out between two fingers, holding it out in between the two of them the same way he does his playing cards. 

Derek stares at the picture of the dead Sheriff in front of him, a little worn down now that it's been traveling with Stiles for a week or so, and frowns. What's he supposed to get about this?

Stiles takes a breath, and then swallows hard. “This is – this was my dad.” 

He stares at the picture for another few seconds, trying to decide how to react. Derek has half a mind to not believe him, but all the evidence he needs is right there in front of him. Stiles would have no reason to lie about it, and he went through the trouble to steal something from Derek just to have the man's picture in his wallet. It's obviously the truth. 

“Don't look _so_ surprised,” Stiles mutters, pulling the picture away as though he's afraid that Derek will take it from him. He slides it gently back into the wallet and closes it, leaving it there in his lap. 

Derek is surprised out of his fucking mind, and it's not just because he never saw this coming and had zero inkling about it either which way. It's about the fact that Stiles, an eighteen year old drug selling hooker that lives on the street, is the son of one of the most respected Sheriffs in Beacon Hills' history. He flips through his memories and yes, Stilinski had a son, but last time he remembers setting eye on the kid at all (a tiny fragmented image from Stilinski's victory speech the night the results for County Sheriff came in), Derek was something like fourteen and Stiles must have been eight or nine. 

It's eerie to think of that little kid, barely a flicker of the image of him held in Derek's memory, and to look at Stiles as he is now. If Stilinski ever found out what happened to his son – well. Maybe it's best he's not alive to see it. “Your father -”

“I always thought that you knew,” he interrupts before Derek can say anything else. “I mean – I call myself _Stiles_. That didn't tip you off?” 

_Stilinski_ and _Stiles_. True, now that Derek knows what he knows, it's easy to put two and two together, but - “I wasn't exactly trying to solve the riddle, Stiles.” 

“Well, I'm the fucking Sheriff's son,” he says this like he's mad about it, and he just might be. “Or at least I used to be. Now, I'm – now I'm just Stiles.” 

Like Stiles had said in that alley that night, weeks ago – Stiles doesn't even have a name anymore, much less a father to remind him of it. If nothing else, it explains why Stiles has it in his head that the Sheriff's department is in some way _out to get him_. About half of them still working had worked under Stilinski for _years_. Stiles must have known them by name, must have grown up getting piggy-back rides and being baby-sat by those very people who now get to pull Stiles, starving and dirty, off the street just to keep him for one single night in a warm room. In all likelihood, they are _literally_ out to get him off the streets. To no avail, clearly. 

“Sorry about your paper.” He looks down at his hands, clasping them together in between his spread knees. “That was shitty of me. But I didn't – I just wanted his picture. I don't have a lot of things from before. Or – _anything_. From before.” 

What happened to Stiles' childhood home? His things, his old pictures, his furniture, his memories? Most of it must have been seized by the state when Stiles got put in foster care, and then when Stiles put himself out on the street, he may have sold what little he had, or had it stolen off of him. Case in point, Derek isn't angry that Stiles ripped a newspaper clipping of Derek's just to have a picture of his dead father. At least Derek has boxes full of pictures of Talia in his closet. 

Derek doesn't say anything. There's not much that he _could_ say, given the situation and the way Stiles looks like he wants to leap up and go running off the edge of the balcony if only to escape having to talk about this. Derek looks away, down the dark hallway where his bedroom and the guest room are waiting, and then he looks back to the side of Stiles' face. His lips are pursed, and he won't meet Derek's eyes. 

“I guess you and I have a lot more in common than you thought,” Stiles says, sullen. 

Derek's mother and Stiles' father both died on the same night, in the exact same place, in nearly the same way. Talia's body had five Raeken bullets, spread across her body like pins on a map, and the Sheriff's had only one less than that. They died in the middle of the forest in the cold of winter and nearly got their bodies dragged off into the underbrush by a bear or a coyote. What the Sheriff was doing out there that night, the cops have long been trying to find out. It might have just been coincidence, or it might have been that Talia was there to talk to him about something – but whatever it was died along with her. 

That was the day that Derek's entire life flipped on its side. Peter took control, and Laura could barely function, and Derek didn't get out of bed. It was the darkest day of his life, and the following weeks were much the same. He never gave a thought to the Sheriff – his death never meant anything to Derek as no cop death ever has. But across town somewhere in suburbia, Stiles was orphaned and alone, and he did the only thing he could think to do, as a stupid sixteen year old. He ran away, and spent the last two years crawling his way to this point, here and now, sitting in Derek Hale's apartment. 

In a way, they have their entire lives in common. One night in December is the defining variable for how they got to where they are now, how they've become _this_. 

Derek shifts across the couch to pull one of the pillows away from Stiles' body, removing the divide between them so that Derek can push his shoulder right up against Stiles'. Neither of them say anything. They prop their feet up on the coffee table, shoulder to shoulder, and sit in the quiet together as the television plays on, meaningless and vapid, in the background. 

After another minute, Stiles drops his head onto Derek's shoulder. His hair brushes gently against Derek's neck, his breath loud enough that Derek can hear it as it skirts down his arm every other second. 

They fall asleep like that, pressed together in the dark.

+

“How long do you think I should stay?”

Stiles is loading his fork up with a pile of hashbrowns, a half a sausage link covered in maple syrup buried somewhere underneath it. He's in the same clothes from yesterday, hair a mess, but he looks like he got a good night's sleep. Derek did as well, he can admit, though whether it was because of Stiles or just because his couch is more comfortable than he had previously thought, he's not sure. 

“That's a loaded question.” 

“It's a simple question,” Stiles fires back, mouth full. He chews, swallows, and starts up again. “I feel like if you're going to be holding me captive -”

“Don't even fucking -”

“I should at least know when my release date is.” 

“Captives don't get to know when they're going to be leaving, Stiles. That's the entire _point_.” 

“So you _admit it_ ,” he points his fork across the table, a grin spreading across his face, “you _are_ holding me captive.” 

Derek takes a second to vindictively slice into one of his own sausage links, so hard that his fork smacks against his plate when it makes its way through the meat. “You can leave any time you want to,” he says carefully, spearing his sausage, “against your better judgment and to your ultimate regret -”

“How come every time I try to make things a little less fucking dark, you have to go and remind me all over again how bad things suck?” He has a smile on his face, but he looks like he means it – Derek might be a little bit of a killjoy, sure, but he just doesn't get the joke in accusing Derek of holding him here against his will. “I'm just kidding. Ever heard of it?” 

“No, actually.” 

“That explains a lot.” 

There's a pall of silence, Stiles and Derek eating at the breakfast bar across from one another, focusing intently on each of their own plates. Having Stiles in his apartment so far has been, in a word, strange. When Derek had woken up and Stiles was up already, blearily blinking at a set of new chocolate diamond rings and rubbing his eyes, Derek nearly jumped out of his skin. It was even weirder when he stumbled out to the balcony for his morning cigarette and Stiles was hot on his heels, his own cigarette in between his fingers, raising his eyebrows in amusement at Derek's obvious confusion. 

Derek's just gotten used to living alone, he figures. All the girls he's ever picked up and taken home are usually gone before he wakes up, which is how he likes it anyway. He's not the best conversationalist in the morning, as could be exemplified by the monosyllables he offered to Stiles as they smoked and watched the sunrise. 

“Seriously, though,” Stiles starts again, dropping his fork onto his empty plate. “It's, like, super cool of you to let me crash with the big bad on my back and all, but...you know.” 

Yes, Derek does know. Stiles wants to go out and make his money and pull his bullshit, no matter the cost to himself. At least he's smart enough to accept and realize that it's a not a good idea right now. “Once all of this is over,” Derek tells him, and Stiles looks down at the counter in front of him with a sigh. 

“At the end of the neverending summer, huh?” His lips twist up wryly, like he thinks it's both funny and sad in equal amounts. 

“It's not neverending.” He puts as much conviction as he can into his voice as he says this, probably trying to convince not only Stiles, but himself that it's the truth. Sometimes it gets hard, when those words are scrawled everywhere all over the city. “It's just...a little more extended that I'd have thought.” 

Stiles gives him a look. “Highs in the nineties and hundreds every single day, kids dying all over the place, the cops pulling in street walkers and interrogating them like movie villains,” he shrugs his shoulders, like it's all so casual, “no end in fucking sight -”

“Matt can't go on forever,” Derek interrupts, shaking his head. “He just can't. Eventually, he'll have to concede -”

“Can _Peter_?” 

It's so startling to hear that name out of Stiles' mouth, said with so much venom and disgust, that Derek can only rear his neck back and frown. “What?” 

“Can Peter go on forever?”

Derek looks away. Of course Peter can go on forever. There's a chance that he may want nothing more than to run this entire city through the wringer, chaos and bloodshed, spanning up until the fall – of course, by then, the entire place will have nearly capsized in on itself. Christ, maybe he'd even go so far as to do that. As though if he can't personally own and run every single inch of this shithole then _no one_ can. 

Stiles is as perceptive as ever, so he reads Derek's silence for what it is. He nods his head, and then he pilfers a cigarette out of the pack Derek has sitting a foot or so away from him. He stands up from his stool and pushes his dirty plate closer to Derek's side, as a silent _so you're doing clean-up, right?_ “Like I said, I'm cool to stay so long as crazy is on my fucking back – but don't pretend like the sun's going down any time soon. The heat goes on,” he waggles the fingers of his free hand mystically, snorts, and then trails his way towards the balcony. 

Derek might have made a mistake bringing Stiles here. If only because he's strongly starting to think that Stiles will wind up driving him crazy before their time together is up. Moreover, Derek thinks that he doesn't want their time together to ever be up. 

The rest of the morning is spent in similar fashion as the night before. Stiles is transfixed with scanning through all of the titles on Netflix, reading their descriptions line by line, but he doesn't actually pick anything to watch. He seems more interested in catching up on what everyone else, who actually has a home and a Netflix subscription, has been doing with their time while he's been doing whatever the hell. Derek doesn't usually putter around his place for longer than is absolutely necessary, so it's simultaneously relaxing and boring as shit to be sitting on the couch all day. Even the always-on company of Stiles isn't enough to alleviate the sheer nothingness of it all. 

Derek is hesitant to leave Stiles alone here, though. Nothing would happen to him, at least nothing that would end in him _dying_ , though Derek can imagine what kind of trouble he could get into if left to his own devices. But Derek just...doesn't want to leave him. It's the longest amount of time they've spent together yet, but it feels like minutes even so. 

An hour passes where neither of them say a word to each other, Derek reading and Stiles making vague noises of interest as he reads movie descriptions. 

“You know, Hulu has hundreds of movie trailers to watch,” Derek says offhand as he turns a page. 

“Get the fuck out of here.” 

There goes another hour, spent with the rising trills of cinematic music and dramatic one-liners, logos and titles flashing across the screen. They get up and smoke together every hour or so, and Stiles fits himself into the exact same position on the balcony every time – leaning in between the corner of the railing, back to the city, facing the forest on the opposite end. He studies the mountains, there, staring at them like he wishes be could be inside of them, somehow fit himself into the lines of the ink across the skin of chest. 

Derek's suspicions are confirmed when Stiles says, “you ever think about leaving?” 

He doesn't have to think about it when he answers, “abstractly.”

“Abstractly,” Stiles repeats, just south of mocking. “What's _that_ supposed to mean?” 

“I mean, I think about it,” he ashes over the railing and watches the particles get swept up by the wind, “but _abstractly_. I can't ever actually go anywhere, so it's more of a pipe dream than it is anything else.” 

“A pipe dream.” 

“Yes.” 

“Why, though? You've got money and means and all that,” he gestures back over his shoulder, toward the city at large. “I'd think there's nothing stopping you.” 

It's a naive way to think, because of course, Stiles is naive. All the things that he's seen and done, and he still thinks things are really that black and white. “It's not that easy.” 

Stiles shrugs. “Money makes everything easy.” 

“Money makes everything worse.” 

Stiles laughs. It's a real belly laugh too, shoulders shaking, head thrown back. “God – it must be so fucking hard to carry that martyr complex around -”

Derek stubs his cigarette out in the ash tray and grits his teeth. 

“...like, poor me, I can afford to pay rent and eat and buy anything I want, including a plane ticket -” 

“Or, _poor me_ , I was born into my piece of shit drug trafficking family and have no other options but to stay here and be a pawn in it.” 

That seems to sober Stiles up, at least moderately. He puffs on his own cigarette, only a few drags left, and gives Derek a steady, calculating look. “I guess I never thought of it that way.” 

“Like I said when we first met, you don't know me.” 

Stiles moves his eyes past Derek's shoulder, to the mountains again, and breathes smoke through his nose. “I guess not.” 

Derek could go back inside, leave Stiles out here to finish on his own, but he stays standing right there. The sun is about to go down, and the city will wake up and go to sleep in equal parts depending on who you're asking as soon as the streetlights buzz on. Stiles looks older, out here, in the sunlight, smoking a cigarette and talking about shit like this. He looks like he's aged more than he should have. 

“You'd leave,” Derek says. It's not a question. 

Stiles slides his eyes back to meet Derek's, a small smile on his face. “Oh, I'll leave. No if about it. I'm leaving.” 

That makes sense. Stiles _should_ leave. He should get the hell out of here and never look back, leave nothing behind for anyone to ever trace him – least of all, Derek. It's only the right thing for him to do; hell, it might even be the _only_ thing for him to do. Anyone with half a brain in their head gets out of Beacon Hills as soon as the clock strikes on their eighteenth birthday. More often than not, they don't ever come back.

Stiles squishes his cigarette out, and then he pauses before turning to head back inside. Derek pauses with him. 

“Hey, Derek,” he says, and Derek nods to show he's listening. “Why does Matt want to kill me?” 

Derek had excluded that part from the narrative he told Stiles the night before, in Lydia's car. He had listened, purse-lipped, as Derek had detailed everything about Matt and Jennifer, how Jennifer had threatened him, how Matt wouldn't ever stop looking for him until either Stiles was dead or he was. He nodded his head, turned to stare out the window, and didn't really have much to say about any of it. Derek had chalked it up to him being scared shitless and not wanting to discuss it any farther than that. 

Now, out on the balcony, Stiles looks just as scared as before, but he is who he is, so of course he has to ask questions before they drive him crazy inside his own head. Derek palms his face. He knows the answer, but he's dreading what kind of reaction Stiles would have to it. Still, he deserves to know, so Derek clears his throat. “It's the only leg up he has.” 

“ _I'm_ the only leg up?” Stiles looks at him like he's grown an extra head. “In a turf war between competing crime families, _I'm_ the defining variable?” 

“I'm trying to -”

“Jesus Christ, that's fucking terrifying.” 

“I know, I _know_. It's my – it's my fault.” This feels huge, said out loud, but guilt has a way of making everything seem bigger than it is. 

Stiles looks at him, eyes big in his head, and then he squints. “How is that _your_ fault?” 

Pick the reason. Because Derek ever sought him out to begin with, because Derek reacted to Stiles time and time again after Peter dangled him like meat in front of his face, because Derek killed Theo to protect him, because Derek nearly shot Matt just for _mentioning_ him. Chief of all, because Derek should've known better. You don't get to keep things, in the world Derek lives in. 

You get bait, and you get liabilities, and you get it all taken away. “I never should have met you.” Things would be better, now. Different, if nothing else. 

Stiles frowns. “I might be dead if you hadn't.” 

Probably. Maybe. Who can tell anymore? 

“He'd kill me just to, what? Piss you off?” 

In the possible reality where Matt killed Stiles, Derek wouldn't be pissed off. Derek would be verging pretty close to the line of sanity, in that fucking scenario. Matt has to know that Derek would rip his head off by the neck if he did that, but he also has to know that he might...not. 

If Stiles died here, all because of Derek – maybe Derek would leave, after all. Abandon everyone in the middle of the neverending summer, leave it all behind, leave Peter to lose his fucking mind and lose everything his mother worked for in the process, leave Laura to die, Erica, Boyd, Lydia. It is the leg up, the only possible way Matt could come close to winning, and everyone knows it. Except Stiles. 

“Something like that,” Derek tells him, and Stiles seems to understand enough to simply nod. “You scared?” 

With a laugh, Stiles looks away from Derek, down at his feet. “I'm used to the feeling.”

Derek thinks about saying something like _I'd never let anything happen to you_ , or _I'd kill him first_ , or even just something as simple as _nothing's going to happen_. But he doesn't, for two fundamental reasons. 

First of all, it's empty promises and Derek knows it. He can't guarantee Stiles anything, not with the way things are going. Derek would like to say that he finds Matt laughable at best and no threat whatsoever, but the reality is that while he may not be able to win the city back from Peter, he sure as fuck has the power to get a little blood on his hands, and he'll stop at absolutely nothing to get it. Derek can admit that he's afraid of Matt, as well. Though if Matt were just threatening him, and not Stiles, he can't say he'd feel the same. 

Which is the second reason he stays quiet. Derek knows that the way he thinks about Stiles, how he _feels_ about Stiles, is beyond anything he's willing to say out loud. Stiles isn't just some street kid that Derek feels bad for, or even that he feels responsible for after dragging him into all of this. It isn't that simple. Derek cares about Stiles. Even that feels like an understatement. And Derek is sure that Stiles has had people tell them they _care_ about him, they like him, they want to be his friend, or his whatever, and none of them really meant it. Derek doesn't want to be that person. 

Some things are better left alone.


	9. Chapter 9

Back inside, Stiles entertains himself by pawing through the contents of Derek's fridge. Usually, it's not very well kept, since Derek spends most of his time eating out or getting take out. He _can_ cook, and used to enjoy it very much, but after Talia died...things just lose their appeal for a while after something like that. Now, there's nothing but essentials like bread and sandwich meats, eggs and milk, snack foods in the cabinets. Stiles finds tortillas and cheese, pushing them towards Derek on the counter with a small smile on his face. 

“Quesadillas,” he says, matter-of-fact. 

Derek smiles back at him as he puts his hand on the ingredients to examine them closer. At least neither of them are expired. “I have to make them?” 

“Well. I make a pretty good radiator quesadilla,” it should unsettle Derek how easily he can call up the image of Stiles fucking laying a tortilla on a radiator and sprinkling value brand cheese over the top, “but I think we should go more gourmet tonight. Since it's a celebration.” 

Derek raises his eyebrows. “What's the celebration?” 

With a smile and a tilt to his head, all sarcastic and witty and oddly _attractive_ at the same time, Stiles says, “we aren't dead yet.” 

It's gallows humor at best, but Derek can't help but laugh. Do the two of them have anything else in their lives worth celebrating? For Christ's sake, they've exiled themselves to a highly secured penthouse on the edge of town out of fear for their literal lives – staying alive is pretty much all they've got going for themselves at the moment. 

Side-stepping Stiles back to the fridge, he pulls a carton of eggs and the last few strips of bacon out and lays them beside the tortillas and cheese, gesturing to them grandly. “Breakfast burritos,” he says this like it's very, very serious business, and Stiles grins at him with all his teeth – a rare expression, for him. 

“Ah, _see_?” He grabs Derek's shoulders, shaking him a bit before patting him hard on the back. “ _This_ is why you're the chef.” 

Stiles makes himself useful by gently poking at the bacon sizzling in the pan with a fork every five seconds, while Derek scrambles the eggs and generously douses the tortillas with cheese. Stiles looks like he has next to no idea what the hell he's doing, nervously probing at the bacon with an intensely serious expression on his face, like he half expects to somehow set them on fire and ruin the entire burrito experience. Which makes sense – Stiles doesn't strike Derek as a person who either has any interest in learning how to cook, or simply never had the opportunity to do so. Radiator quesadillas, indeed. 

The bacon comes out fine, in spite of Stiles' fretting, and they camp out at the barely ever used dining room table with two burritos each. Stiles talks with his mouth full about his favorite movies, his favorite pizza place in the city (a place on the Raeken side, as luck would have it – Derek's only heard it's the best pizza in town, but of course, he's never had the chance to try it himself), and anything else that pops into his head. 

Stiles is easy to talk to. He leans forward into Derek's personal space whenever he asks a question, fully engaging in the conversation so Derek gets a sense he's actually listening to whatever Derek has to say back. He also has an uncanny ability to fill every silence before it gets awkward, and to choose the most mindless, simple topics, so they don't have to think about anything else that they maybe should be thinking about. 

It's nice for a while to just talk like normal friends having a normal dinner instead of what they really are. Friends? Jesus, Derek doesn't know. Maybe _allies_ would be a better term for what the two of them are to each other. 

Either way, the calm comes to a screeching halt when Lydia pushes her way through the front door, swooping inside with her boots making loud _thumps_ as she walks across the hardwood to where the two men are sitting. She's got her old black bag slung over her shoulder, jostling with her movements even with how heavy it probably is – she looks like she has a dozen or so manila folders full of pictures in there. It's more than a little foreboding. She doesn't usually travel so heavy. 

Derek looks down at his plate, empty save for a few crumbs, and sighs. Eventually, someone would have to come barging in here to either demand Derek _do something_ or to just – fucking make a scene. Ever since Peter stopped forcing them into morning meetings, they haven't been seeing very much of each other at all, and Derek is usually the one who vanishes off the face of the planet when he's not forced to convene with the rest of the group. Derek had frankly expected Erica, who loves nothing more than a dramatic entrance and a shouting match, but Lydia is just as well as the next person. 

Stiles sits up a bit straighter when she slides her eyes to him for a moment, maybe out of anxiety, or maybe just because Lydia has that kind of effect on people. She stops at the head of the table, drops one of her ominous manila folders onto the glass, and looks at them steadily for seconds on end. 

“Well?” Derek prompts when the silence starts to feel too heavy. 

She swivels her eyes to him in specific, and Jesus Christ, she looks terrible. She looks like the only sleep that she ever gets comes in fits, moments where she blanks out and drops her camera in her lap, shutting down for twenty minutes before coming back even more tired than she was to begin with. She opens her mouth, and then purses her lips closed as she looks away, out the window. The city lights are coming on, one by one, a domino effect that sweeps across the skyline. 

It's not like Lydia at all to hesitate. Derek looks briefly at Stiles, whose expression says loud and clear that he's just as nervous as Derek is about whatever Lydia's visit is all about because it very evidently isn't anything good. Then Derek tries to meet Lydia's eyes, but to no avail. She pointedly glares down at the city with such disdain you'd think all she wanted to do was just douse it all in gasoline, strike a match, and watch as it burned itself to the ground. Derek can relate to that feeling very, very well. 

She opens up the folder, and shoves a stack of pictures across the glass in such a way that they fan out in an uneven line in between where Stiles and Derek are sitting. “Boyd is dead,” she says – and of course, the pictures do a very nice job of illustrating that as the irrefutable truth. 

“Oh, my God,” Stiles says, immediately averting his eyes from the pictures and covering his mouth with his hand. But he's human, so of course, he can't help but to look again, eyes scanning every single detail laid out in front of him. The blood splattered across the pavement of the parking lot at the bridge, the eyes wide open and staring straight up into the city lights, the inside of his skull exposed and bright in the flash of the camera. 

Derek looks at the pictures, face blank. He nods his head once, lips turned down at the corners. “Okay,” he says. 

“Okay,” Lydia agrees in a harsh voice. Derek knew from the start of all this that people were going to die – and not just people that he doesn't know or care about. He won't say that the knowledge that something will happen ever makes the actual event of it any easier, but he's used to this feeling. Fear, guilt, sadness, loss, all hollowing out a space inside of his chest – it's something you just learn to live with, the hole that grief leaves behind. “You can imagine Erica isn't very happy.” 

Derek can imagine just fine. Not that he wants to. In his head, he can imagine Erica stalking around in Raeken territory with her gun in her head, yelling out into the night air for Matt to _come out, come out_. “She's going to get herself -”

“Killed, sure,” her eyes track Stiles as he puts an index finger on one of the pictures and drags it closer to himself – Derek has half a mind to slap his hand away and tell him to not look, but he reminds himself that Stiles has seen worse. In person, at that. “There's nothing I can do about that. If she wants to go off on a revenge suicide mission -”

“I'll talk to her,” Derek says in a way that doesn't welcome any further argument, and Lydia huffs out a sigh. She reaches her arm across the table and drags the pictures into a pile, ripping the last one out of Stiles' hands with a sneer. He flinches, and then swallows hard, looking down at his hands, an unreadable expression on his face. Derek wishes he could know what's going through his head. 

“Good fucking luck,” Lydia mumbles, pushing the pictures back into their folder like she's angry at them – and she just might be. Derek is lucky, because he just has to see the pictures, hear the news, react to it however he feels like. Lydia has to get the call. And drive to the body. And take pictures, every angle, zoom, flash, until her eyes go spotty with it. She doesn't even get the time to have her own reaction. She has to be gone before the cops arrive as though she was never there at all. “You know how she gets. It's like tunnel vision to her. It doesn't even matter anymore.” 

Derek grits his teeth. He thinks, _of course it matters, it matters, it fucking matters_ , but to Lydia, it might not. To everyone else, it might not. Erica might go crazy with grief and go waltzing into Raeken territory and get herself killed, and oh, it doesn't matter. A tally mark on a board in the Sheriff's station, nothing more. “I'll talk to her,” he reiterates, and Lydia rolls her eyes. 

“Do whatever the hell you want.” 

Derek hates that she can be so cavalier, but she's been hardened by years of the same thing again and again. For fuck's sake, Boyd was her friend too, someone she had known and worked with for years, but then that doesn't matter to her either. All the same, even knowing that this is just how she is, her nature, what she's become, Derek gets angry. He stands from the table, and Stiles jumps a little from the suddenness of it, blinking at him with wide eyes. He's wondering what it is that Derek's about to do, shifting his eyes to Lydia as though he strongly suspects a physical fight might be about to break out. 

“One of us has to give a shit,” Derek mutters, moving to walk past the table to his bedroom, to get dressed, put shoes on, find Erica. 

But, Lydia steps in front of him, holding her hand out. She gives him this look, like they're strangers, and then it's gone as quickly as it came, replaced by anger pure and simple. “How nice for you,” she starts, voice low, “to still even have the capacity for things like _giving a shit_.” 

“Human capacity, you mean,” Derek spits, venomous as ever, and Lydia's lips twitch. 

“You always thought you were so above all of this,” and here they fucking go, all over again. This is an old, old argument, one that Derek and Lydia have gone around in circles inside of upward of a dozen times since they first met. It comes up every time something like this happens – even when Talia died, Lydia was throwing this in his face, all condescending and mocking even in the wake of something like _that_. “You think you're better than the rest of us, you've always thought that.” 

“Maybe I am!” Derek yells it. Lydia doesn't flinch, but Stiles appears to be markably uncomfortable, looking between the two of them again and again. “Maybe I _fucking_ am, if I'm the only one who -”

“Oh, I know,” Lydia cuts him off with sarcasm so thick it makes Derek shut his mouth if only because it's just that harsh, “because you've never killed anyone if it wasn't to defend someone else, you've never been _involved_ , this entire life is just something that fucking happens to you. You bear it like it's a fucking cross. Poor you, poor you, on and fucking on.” 

“I never wanted -”

“You _never wanted_ to be a part of it, I _know_!” 

“You don't know what it's like to be born, with no choice -”

Lydia advances on him – so quick, with so much anger etched in lines all over her face Derek is sure she's about to hit him. Instead, she just comes in close, spitting her words out like they make her sick to even have in her mouth. “You think I don't know what it's like to not have a _choice_? That I just wanted this? Fuck. You.” 

Maybe Derek does feel a little guilty for the suggestion, and he has to look away from her eyes, shamed. Just like Erica, and just like Boyd, Lydia never had a fucking choice about the things that have happened to her in the last five years. If any of them ever had, then they wouldn't be doing this. It's that simple. The money, and the cars, and the power; it seemed worth it, to them, when they were starving on the streets as teenagers like Stiles. And beyond that, it felt like they didn't have a choice, if they wanted to live. 

Lydia knows what it's like to not have a choice. But it doesn't matter. 

“I'm not doing this,” Derek says, and skirts around Lydia towards the hallway. “I'm going to find Erica, and do the right god damn thing.” 

“The _right thing_ ,” Lydia calls after him, “you keep telling yourself that! Killing Theo and starting this entire thing, initiating fucking shoot-outs, nearly murdering someone outside of a motel – sending me off to trail after a teenaged hooker -”

Derek plans to just ignore, ignore, keep right on walking away from this entire shitshow, but then Stiles talks for the first time since Lydia walked inside the apartment. 

He says, “ _what_?”, clear as a belle, confusion written over all the cadences of his tone, and Derek stops. 

Truth be told, Derek had never given a lot of thought to what Stiles' reaction would be if he ever found out that he had Lydia following him. Taking his picture. Watching him. It's so commonplace to Derek to send her to do the exact same thing, that he didn't even stop to _think_ about what Stiles might think about it. 

He turns around, and meets Stiles' eyes. Again, in the following silence, Stiles repeats, “what? Trailing me?” 

Derek palms his forehead. He doesn't have time for this conversation, and he has to get out of here and find Erica before something bad happens, but Stiles is sitting there looking betrayed and lied to, and Derek doesn't know what he's supposed to say. “Stiles,” he starts, and then says nothing else. 

Because she's petty, and vindictive, and angry at him, Lydia opens the flap of the bag she still has slung on her shoulder and picks a folder out, thick and heavy. She tosses it on top of the table with a _thwap_ , right in front of where Stiles is sitting. “You fucking got yourself into this mess,” she tells him as he eyeballs the stack in front of him warily, “you should at least know who Derek Hale even really fucking is and what it is that we _do_.” 

With those final words, she turns on her heel, hair flipping over her shoulder, and walks out, leaving nothing but silence behind her in her wake. Derek stands there, and he thinks about taking the pictures away from Stiles, burning them in the fireplace before he can look at them, before they can incriminate Derek. But, it's too late. Stiles opens the folder, and there his own face is, in perfect color, staring out blankly across the room. He picks it up in his hands, stares at it for a second, and then goes to the next.

And the next, and the next, and the next, on and on until there's not enough room left on the table for them, and they spill over the edge, fluttering to the ground. Snapshots of himself walking down sidewalks at night, standing outside of motel rooms waiting for one of his clients to open up the doors, through the glass at a laundromat, buying weed off of one of Laura's girls, counting his change inside of a Burger King – on and on and on. 

Derek takes a step forward to say something, _anything_ , if only to get that look off of Stiles' face, but he knows that there's nothing he could possibly say to make any of this better. To him, this is just what he does, and that's what Lydia had meant in what she said to Stiles. 

She meant that this is simply what they do, where they come from – absolute and utter lack of privacy comes with the territory. It's expected, even. But Derek can finally see how fucked up it might be from an outsider's perspective, just from seeing the way that Stiles is looking at the evidence of it right in front of his face. 

Derek is a bad person, in the most fundamental way. Maybe Stiles hadn't managed to figure that out for himself yet before tonight. 

He looks up, brow furrowed. “Are you some kind of...” he starts, and then clears his throat, “...what, is this like an obsession?” 

Of course that's what it looks like. There are fucking hundreds of photographs of him spread out in front of him, and of course it looks like Derek is some stalker who wants to chain Stiles up in his basement. It's damning, but Derek has to try to explain. “ _No_ ,” he insists, stepping forward. 

“What is this?” Stiles asks, waving a specific picture up in the air. He's standing underneath a street light, cards in his hand, but from the way Stiles holds it in his fingers like he wants to rip it apart, you'd think it was something far, far worse than that. “What _is this_?” 

Derek can't think of a way to get himself out of this – no lie seems good enough, no half-truth can measure up. The only option he has is just to tell the truth. No matter how badly it fucking sucks. “It's what Lydia does,” he says, his voice sounding small in his own ears. “We...I had to make sure you weren't getting yourself killed -”

Stiles looks down. And, really, he – shit. He looks scared. Of _Derek_. 

Derek hasn't seen him truly be afraid of Derek himself since the first time they fucking met, and to see it back on his face now, after everything that's happened between the two of them...it's nearly like everything that's happened between them hasn't happened at all, or has been erased. Like they don't know each other at all. 

“Peter was the one who was obsessed with you,” Derek says, moving closer, “I thought he was going to kill you or try and force you to be one of us, and I had to make sure that wasn't going to happen, I was just -” 

Stiles shoves the piles of pictures away, as hard as he can. It knocks them all over, so two dozen different Stiles' are spread across the table, and Stiles looks at them all like they make him fucking sick. He stands from the table, jerking away from it and all the pictures like he just has to, _has_ to get away from them, and spits, “I can't _fucking_ believe you.” 

“I had to make sure you were okay, I couldn't see you or talk to you without it drawing suspicion -”

“Maybe you're not a fucking psychopath,” Stiles says as he passes, as Derek puts his hand on his upper arm, as Stiles maneuvers his way out of it to stumble backwards, “but that's – that's _fucked_ up that you think you can just do that to someone.” 

Derek swallows. They meet eyes, and Stiles looks so fucking angry and scared and unsure, because he's staying in the same apartment as someone who's been almost _stalking_ him for nearly an entire month, and he doesn't know what to think about that. Derek tries to understand, and he does, but at the same time he...doesn't. To him, it's black and white. It was the right thing to do. Peter was going to kill him. Someone was going to kill him. Derek had to make sure that wasn't going to happen. He did what he had to. 

Stiles shakes his head. “Don't you have to go?” He hisses, and Derek clenches his fists at his sides. Yes, he has to leave. Erica is out there, and she's one of Derek's very few actual friends, and she's important, and he can't afford to just stand here while she's making a mistake that'll land her in a body bag. 

All because of a stupid war he went ahead and started himself over the kid who will barely look him in the eyes, right now. 

“It's just what we do,” he says again, one last desperate attempt to try and make Stiles understand. But Stiles scoffs, and crosses his arms over his chest, and looks pointedly away. The best that Derek can do right now is try and meet his eyes. “I have to go. Don't – don't leave.” 

Stiles finally looks at him, lips turned down into a frown, and then stalks off down the hallway to where the guest room is waiting for him. He slams the door behind him, and Derek palms his face. Stiles is angry at him, but there's nothing Derek can do about that right now. If Stiles chooses to try and up and leave the apartment, the bodyguard will stop him and shove him back inside – but Stiles is clever and slippery enough to find his own way out of the apartment if he really wanted to get out.

Out there, Stiles will get himself killed. Stiles must know that, because he's smart. He might be angry and upset, but he has to be smart enough to not let that cloud his judgment. 

Even if Stiles did want to leave in spite of everything, he has every right to.

He hightails it to his car with one last glance over his shoulder to the top of his building, where his balcony is sitting in the night air. It's dark, empty, the few lights on in the apartment giving nothing away of what Stiles might be doing inside of it right about now. He purses his lips and tries to ignore all of it as he gets inside, closing the door behind him.

Derek is more than used to having a lot of things on his mind at any given time. Like Stiles has said before, you learn to compartmentalize when you live like this. That's exactly what he does. He files whatever it is that Stiles might be thinking about him right now away into a separate corner of his mind, does the same with the images burned behind his eyelids of Boyd's dead body, with Lydia, and Peter, and just tries to focus all of his attention on where he might be able to find Erica. 

Without Lydia's help, he's flying blind. Lydia can always find anyone, as easily as she can do anything else. If he were to try and give her a call now, she'd either let it ring until voicemail picked it up or she'd answer it just for the gratification of getting to hang up on him. Case in point, as easy as she would make this entire thing, she's just not an option. 

That said, Derek still knows the city as well as Lydia does – moreover, he thinks he knows Erica even better than Lydia does. All the places that she could be, all the different roads she might take to get there, all over the city. He trails them all. 

He drives down along the edges of Raeken territory, scanning the streets for any sign of Erica's car, or Erica herself, _anything_. All he finds are police cars driving slow, street kids meandering about looking scared, and empty alleyways. It's possible she's already crossed the line. Derek doesn't know if he would be able to follow her, if that's what she's gone and done. 

Fear holds him back from driving straight through the stop sign that'll take him into the other half of the city. His headlights cast the street in a yellow glow, and it looks just the same as any other street on the Hale half – still, Derek can't move his foot to the gas pedal. Maybe Lydia had been right. Derek is no better than she is, or Laura is, or Erica, or maybe not even Peter. Derek might just be worse. He's a coward. He swears under his breath and turns left, circling back into Hale land, his hand gripping the steering wheel so tight he's white-knuckled. 

If he isn't going to go over the line, then the first place he should start is Erica's apartment. It's unlikely that she's there, because even on any other ordinary night she's out prowling the streets like the rest of them are, but it would be absolutely idiotic of him to not at least check. 

She lives down by Peter's safe house, in a high rise apartment building that's gated in. He has to give his name at the intercom to a bored sounding security girl, and the dead five seconds of static after he says _Hale_ is so loud it's almost palpable. All the same, she buzzes him in, and the gates swing open. It's possible she was just afraid of what would have happened if she had said no to him. Derek thinks he would've just parked his car and climbed over the gate to try and sneak by security cameras, but she can think whatever she wants about him. It's no worse than what anyone else thinks of him. 

Once he's outside of Erica's door, a place he does not visit very often, he knocks. There's no answer, just the silence of her hallway at this hour of the night. He knocks again, and again, stepping back in between knocks to rub at the back of his neck, nervously steps forward and back again. He looks down the hallway toward the stairs again and again, as if he's afraid someone will come leaping out to kill him. It's not an unfounded fear. 

Finally, he tries the knob, twisting it vindictively and too hard. He expects it to be locked. Instead, it swings wide open, and he had pushed hard enough that it slams against the wall with a bang, jolting him a bit. He stands there staring in the doorway for seconds on end, before swallowing and cautiously stepping inside. Erica never leaves her door unlocked. Fuck, none of them ever do. It would be near suicidal in their line of work to take that kind of a risk. Yet, here he is. 

Her apartment is the same as it always was – it has an air about it that suggests she's hardly ever here, which wouldn't be entirely inaccurate. The only part of it that looks even remotely lived in is the kitchen, where a small pile of dishes has collected inside the sink, a glass half full of orange juice sitting on the counter, a tea pot waiting on top of a burner. 

He closes the door behind him, and calls, “Erica?”, out into the silence. Nobody answers him, so he steps farther into her living room. All the shades are pulled down, her coffee table bare, television blank. He figures he'll do a quick sweep and then move onto the next location. One of her drop-off points maybe, or the safe house, or – shit. Derek nearly doesn't fucking know where to go next. 

He pads down the hallway past the open door to the bathroom, dark until he flips the light switch in the hallway to illuminate it eerily in mostly shadows. He goes past her closet, past the spare bedroom, all the way to her own bedroom at the end of it all. The door is closed, so he pushes it open and steps inside. 

Perfunctorily, he flicks on the light, expecting to see nothing but her unmade bed and some pill bottles on her bedside table. Instead, he nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees Erica herself, looking particularly out of sorts. 

She's slumped on the floor, up against the wall, right underneath the wide window that stares at nothing but the brick wall of the building across the parking lot. She's got her knees pulled up, resting her arms on either leg, blinking blearily at the light Derek turned on.

She meets his eyes, and for the first time since Derek met her, for years and years, she's crying. It almost doesn't look like her at all, to see her like this – make up smeared, eyes red and bloodshot, lines of her frown collecting teardrops as they slowly trickle down her cheeks. 

Derek clears his throat. “I thought you'd...not be here,” he opens, awkwardly. Her response to this is a sniffle, as she runs her forearm across her face to sop up the dampness there with the sleeve of her jacket, but she says nothing. Derek stays hovering in the doorway. “I thought you'd have gone over to Raeken.” 

Sarcastically, she snorts, shaking her head and glaring at the opposite wall. “I'm not crazy,” her voice cracks, “I'm sad.” 

“Yeah,” Derek says. Clearly, she is. She's in rare fucking form, almost to the point where Derek has half a mind to say that this _isn't_ Erica, this person in front of him. “Lydia made it sound like you were strapping a bomb to yourself and heading into Matt's headquarters, or something.” 

“Maybe I should,” she thumps her head back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. “But I don't care about killing Matt.” 

Derek takes a few steps closer to her, hands in his pockets, and then stands right in front of her – looking down, lips a grim line. Just like all the other times before he's been in similar situations with other people, he isn't sure what to do. What comfort he could possibly offer her. Boyd is dead, and that's all there is to it. All the _I'm sorry's_ in the world can't do anything about that. 

“I don't care about any of this anymore. I'm tired, Jesus, I'm so tired...” she rubs her palms into her eyes, and when she pulls them away, they're covered in tears and mascara lines, the same ones that are running down her face. “I just wish it would end. I don't know how much longer I can keep this shit up.” 

She looks like she can't do it for even another fraction of a second, as she is now. For as much as everyone says that this summer is stretching out into Fall, endless and unbreakable heat, it's only fucking July. They've only been at it for a month, maybe a little more, but already it seems like everyone is cracking underneath the pressure of it. 

Derek sits down next to her on the carpet, so that their shoulders are almost touching, and leans his back against the wall. 

“He was my only friend,” she says, maybe just to say it. 

“I'm your friend,” Derek offers, and Erica gives him a look. 

“That's not the same.” It isn't, it really isn't, and Derek knows that it isn't. Erica and Boyd knew each other for years, more time than Erica and Derek have known each other by a mile. Boyd got her off the streets. Boyd gave her this life, the money, and the clothes, and the nice apartment on the good side of town. 

He won't say it out loud, but Boyd also got her _here_. Derek doesn't blame him, because he did what he had to, no choices, no options, but it's just the truth. If they had been anyone else, two different versions of themselves in a different city – things might have turned out differently. Boyd might still be here, now. 

“Lydia really said I was going nuts?” It's a subject change, as good a one as they're likely to get, so Derek jumps at it. 

“More or less,” he looks her over, from head to toe, and understands how Lydia could've gotten that impression. If this is what Erica is like now, hours after the fact, he can only imagine what she had been like in the minutes after it happened. Completely despondent. 

“She thinks reactions are a waste of time,” she sniffles and shakes her head. “She doesn't know what it's like, you know? She never had anyone like I had Boyd. She thinks every death is the same as the next, like fucking strangers and people you've known for years are just the same. I don't know how she can operate like that.” 

Derek looks at his hands. “She trained herself.” 

“Yeah, into a fucking robot.” She pauses for a moment, letting the silence settle a little more so that Derek can hear sirens as they go off somewhere, blocks and blocks away. “But, I don't know. She might be right, because _this_ feeling right now? I feel like I'm...I couldn't get revenge if I wanted to. I can't move.” 

She's probably been in this position for hours. Derek remembers this feeling from when Talia died – how he couldn't even fucking get out of bed, the exact spot he was in when Boyd himself burst through his door and told him about it. If he had been able to get up, to act like Lydia and shrug it off as just another reaction he's not allowed to have, maybe he would've been able to take everything over before Peter did all of this, before Derek let himself get swept up into it. Peter maybe capitalized on Derek's grief, and Laura's inability to function like a normal human being, and stepped in before either of them could. 

“Am I gonna be okay?” She asks. It looks like she's asking it to the room, maybe to the world at large, and Derek doesn't know if he's supposed to answer that. Her eyes look so unseeing, blankly settling on nothing. 

Still, answer he does. “Yes,” he says, and not just because it's the right thing to say. But because it's true. Derek eventually got out of bed, and Stiles eventually made it to the streets, so Erica will eventually get up. It's how things work, in the real world; and in spite of how otherworldly Beacon Hills starts to feel sometimes, it's just as real as any other place out there. A full cemetery, a highway out, a sun that rises and falls. 

For a while, there's more quiet. Derek doesn't know how long he sits there with her, maybe twenty minutes, maybe an hour, maybe more – and soon, he has to leave. Erica is fine, or she will be, and he has to get back to Stiles and sort everything with him out before he makes his own stupid decision. 

As Derek is shifting to get up, Erica interrupts him by clearing her throat. “You came over here to stop me from getting killed,” she says it like fact, and Derek nods. She scans his face, and then she nods right back at him. “You are my friend. I don't have anyone else left I can say that about.” 

It's the closest to a big, grand, movie moment about friendship and trust as Erica and Derek are ever going to get in the lives that they lead. Derek makes an affirmative noise, nothing more, and stands up. He walks out of Erica's apartment without another word, trailing down the hallway and into the elevator. He leans back against the railing as he goes down, staring down at the floor around his feet. 

At some point, all of this shit has to end. Derek isn't afraid of the outcome, the final verdict, even if they once and for all manage to get Derek in jail, and Peter too, Matt – end the entire fucking thing in the most anticlimactic way possible. No, that doesn't scare him. 

What scares him is the in-between. The events leading up to the final resolution. There are a million possibilities, who's going to die and who isn't – Derek doesn't even waste the time hoping that he'll manage to stay alive. There'd be no point. 

But he's scared for Laura, and Erica, and Stiles, and even _Lydia_ – bitch she might be, but she's human, underneath all of it, and he knows her. 

One person he isn't scared for at all is Peter. In a lot of ways, Derek is almost hoping that he'll be a body Derek will get to step over on his way to the finish line. 

Back home, the apartment is dead silent. Everything is exactly where Derek and Stiles had left it. The empty plates are still sitting on the table, the frying pan from the bacon sitting in the sink, all of the pictures of Stiles spread out across the dining room. Derek sighs through his nose looking at them – he genuinely never thought that it would be a problem. As many times as he can repeat it, he has to keep repeating in his head that this isn't weird, to him. 

Shit, Lydia used to trail _Derek_ all the fucking time. She's got backlogged pictures of him from when he was seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, on and on and on. But even all that said, looking at these pictures now of Stiles...when more than half of them are of him selling, looking sweaty men in the eyes and giving them that tight lipped smile, vanishing into motel rooms and alleyways...

Derek can understand why Stiles would hate them, so much. It's a mirror reflection of himself, the truth about everything he's done sitting there out in the open, immortalized in film for anyone to see. His shame. 

He takes his shoes off in his bedroom and then pads down the hallway to Stiles' door – he takes a deep breath, and then he knocks. 

Unlike at Erica's place, he actually gets an answer. “Leave me alone,” comes muffled through the wood, and Derek breathes a sigh of relief. At least he didn't make a shimmy rope out of his sheets and take off down the side of the building from the balcony – at _least_ he's still here, which says a lot about just how mad he is or isn't. Even moreso, just how disgusted with Derek he is or isn't. 

“I want to explain,” he says into the wood. 

“I know the explanation, all right? I don't care. I don't want to talk about it.” 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose, rolls his eyes to the ceiling, and opens the door anyway. He steps inside to find Stiles leaning against the frame of his bed, cross-legged and scowling at where Derek is standing. His bag is open on the ground, piles of clothes strewn about like he had been digging for something, but other than that, the room is just as empty as it's ever been. “You didn't leave,” Derek points out.

Stiles glares at him. “A choice between you and getting my guts ripped out and fuckin' eaten by Matt isn't exactly a hard one.” 

Derek crosses the carpet and sits on the farthest edge of the bed, facing the empty closet and the one window, his back facing the other end of the room. Stiles shifts a little, pulling his legs farther away from Derek like he doesn't even want to be _that_ close, and crosses his arms over his chest. “I'm sorry about those pictures.” 

Stiles' response to this is a scoff and an eye roll, which Derek frankly expected, so he keeps going anyway.

“I didn't – I'll admit I never thought about how that would make you feel, I was just being selfish. It was a dick thing to do, but you – do you understand that that is just how things work in my world?” 

Finally, Stiles looks directly at him, meets his eyes. “I'm not a part of _your world_ , all right? I'm not one of your uncle's fucking cronies that you have, like, jurisdiction over, do you get that?” 

“Maybe I don't have jurisdiction over you,” Derek admits, “but you – you're part of this, now.” 

“No, I'm _not_.” 

“Stiles.” That's all he says – exasperated, meeting Stiles' eyes head on. But Stiles clenches his jaw together and says nothing. Conceding to the point in silence. “You are. I did that to you, and I'm sorry.” 

“ _Peter_ did that to me,” he says it like there's venom coming out along with it, and Derek lowers his head and feels – just terrible. Peter did a lot of things to Stiles. Most of it, things that Derek can't even let himself fucking think about, let alone actively discuss with Stiles. There must be trauma there, somewhere, hidden behind Stiles' set jaw and his big talk and his eye rolls. Derek won't push the issue, not tonight. 

“Look,” Derek starts, changing the path of the conversation, “I mean it that I'm sorry about those pictures. I'll get rid of them, all right? No more of that. Even when this is all over – if it makes you uncomfortable, then no more.” 

“When this is all over,” Stiles repeats, voice low and mocking. “Yeah, when's that gonna be?” 

That's the question on everyone's minds. No end in sight, as everyone says; but Derek thinks about the end near daily, even if it's not visible to him in real time. The other side has to be out there. As many times as he thinks there's nothing but rocks and a pit on the opposite end of every mountain boxing them in, Derek knows it's not true. Eventually, eventually. 

“Just give me a straight answer about something.” Stiles lifts himself up onto his knees and crawls across the bed a bit, so he's kneeling back on his haunches only a couple of inches away from where Derek has sat himself. He stares at the side of Derek's face, until Derek turns and looks back at him. He sees determination there, and fear, and anger, and, almost so buried Derek can barely make it out, hope. “Should I be afraid of you?” 

Derek stares at him for what seems like a long time. The answer is no, when it's phrased like that. Derek would never do anything to hurt Stiles, not physically, not even emotionally if he can help it though it seems he's already failing at that. He would never. No matter what happens. 

But there's more to Derek than just his own choices, his own actions. There's his family, his life, his money, his friends, the people he knows, the cops, everything, all of it. Stiles should be afraid of that, of course he should. When this is done, Stiles should go and never come back. Out of Derek's life, for good, because he deserves more. Whatever's waiting over those mountains, Stiles deserves it all. 

“I wouldn't hurt you,” Derek decides to say, and Stiles nods. 

“I believe that.” Tentatively, he reaches out until his fingers are on Derek's shoulder. He curls them, squeezing – a comfort. It's the first time they've really _touched_ , deliberate hands reaching out, since that night when Jennifer has threatened him, and Derek had wrapped his arms around Stiles, put his hand on Stiles' neck. “Please get rid of those pictures.” 

Derek nods. It's the least he could do.

“And – I'm sorry about your friend.” 

“Me and Boyd weren't really friends.” 

Stiles just looks at him. He looks, and he looks, and Derek believes that there's nothing there for Stiles to find, a blank and empty slate. But he must find _something_ , because he smiles all sad, like he pities Derek for saying a thing like that. “All right,” he says, and nothing more. 

But he leaves his hand on Derek's shoulder for another second longer, the only offering of a condolence he thinks he'll be able to get away with.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is pretty long when compared with the others lmao but I couldn't really handle breaking any of it up - eventually the discrepancies in chapter lengths will get to me and I might come back in and fix it but who knows lmao

Stiles watches, his knees pulled up to his chest, as the lights and pictures from the television screen cast his face in an eerie blue glow, a stark contrast to the rest of the dark apartment. Derek sits next to him, a hand over his mouth, reading the banner flashing white letters across the bottom of the screen. There are long shots of police officers unrolling yellow tape across a chain link fence they must have put up at some point in the middle of the night, patrol cars lining the side of the road in front of the store, people gathered in a crowd watching. 

They've finally gone and closed the bridge down. They boarded up the windows of the Kroger's, screwed _PRIVATE PROPERTY – NO ADMITTANCE_ signs onto the fence they had hammered into the ground surrounding the lot. On one end of the parking lot, there's a gas station mini mart that marks the entry way to the Raeken half of the city, and on the other end, there's a bakery that marks Hale territory. Derek is amazed they haven't boarded those up, too. 

The decision must have come after Boyd was shot dead in between a minivan and a shopping cart trolley. Someone had to have decided that enough was enough – this is a last ditch effort by the police and the city to _handle the situation_ , as if boarding up the bridge will expand the distance between the two groups, leave a giant gaping hole in between two cliffs that neither of them could cross. They're stupid. They always have been. 

Stiles has bags under his eyes, pressing his chin into his knee and frowning. “It's getting bad,” he says. 

“It's already been bad.” 

“I mean, it's getting _worse_ ,” he looks Derek in the face, and there's so much vulnerability there that Derek just wants to put him on the first plane out of California. “It's starting to feel a lot like we're reaching some kind of fucking climactic ending, here.” 

He's not wrong about that. Things are _definitely_ climaxing. It's been three days since Lydia barged into Derek's place announcing that Boyd was dead, and since then, it's been nothing short of _bleak_ all across the city. He was the first of the Hale higher-ups to die in this skirmish, the first really important death after Theo. People, the normal ones who just live here trapped among the bullshit, naturally started to grow more cautious after the news reports came out about Boyd. Boarding up the bridge, closing businesses before the sun goes down, leaving the city empty and dead. 

The perfect playground for the rest of the city to do whatever with it that they wished. Derek stops seeing kids wandering around at least, and starts seeing grown adults – it's better in the sense that at least Matt has stopped sending pre-teens to fucking die for him, but worse in the sense that he's upgrading. Anything he can use to try and win this, he'll take advantage of. Derek thinks he's already lost, Boyd's death nothing but a stumble for the Hales before they recollect themselves and regroup. But of course, no one can say that anyone has lost until Matt is dead, and until whoever's left scrambling on the other half of the city in the wake of that death concedes. 

Mid-July, it gets so fucking hot out no one can think clearly. Matt has to snap and slip up soon – he just has to. 

“I guess we are,” Derek says, and Stiles deflates. Was he actually hoping that Derek would argue with him or say something sugarcoated to make him feel better? It's just a reminder that Stiles is...he's just not meant to be here. People who think like that aren't meant to be here, at all. 

Stiles reaches for the remote abruptly, thumbing down so hard on the power button that he nearly breaks it through the plastic. The television goes dark, leaving them in only the dim glow from the kitchen light across the room. 

Stiles rubs at his eyes, finally dropping his feet onto the ground. He leans forward so his face is in his hands entirely, bent over like he can hardly even sit up straight anymore. “Fuck, I'm so tired,” he half-whines. The clock in the kitchen is ticking around one o'clock in the morning, and both Derek and Stiles are sitting out here on the couch, no plans of turning into bed. “I haven't been sleeping, you know?” 

“Yeah,” Derek agrees. He knows. He hasn't been sleeping very much at all for months. 

Long fingers keep massaging into the skin underneath Stiles' eyes, as though he's trying to rub the weariness straight out of his head. “I get these fucking nightmares. I don't know how to even describe them,” he finally stops rubbing and puts his chin in his fingers, staring straight forward with his lips in a grim line. “It's like – sometimes it's my dad. But those aren't new. They're just worse, I guess, like – super vivid. It's fucked up but I think it's my dad's face on Theo's body. Do you know what I mean?” 

Derek nods even though Stiles isn't looking at him. When Stiles' dad first died, when he first started having those nightmares, he didn't know anything aside from the movies about what a dead body looks like when it's right in front of you. How much blood there really is. What a real bullet wound looks like. The inside of someone's fucking skull. Now, his subconscious can readily supply these images, assault him with them whenever he's too tired to fend them off. 

“Sometimes it's other stuff.” It's not like Stiles needs to expand on what _other stuff_ he could possibly have nightmares about. Derek has long suspected that Stiles has deep-seated emotional issues over the things he's done these last two years, but it's no surprise to him whatsoever that Stiles isn't jumping to talk about them now, or ever. “I don't know, I'm just not getting any god damn sleep. It's starting to put a damper on this whole _city in ruins_ thing.” 

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel. As bad as things are now, they can only get worse, and worse, until they get so bad that there's not even any city left for any of them to claim. It's supremely fucked up that Derek is very nearly hoping for that to happen. But then, is anyone really surprised? 

“What about you?” Stiles asks, tilting his head toward Derek but not actually looking at him. “You ever get bad dreams?” 

Derek's dreams have always been varied to some extent, but they've always been _bad_ , ever since he lost his mother. He can't remember the last time he had a dream and remembered it if it wasn't just fucking awful. 

Lately, though, all of Derek's dreams have been the same thing over and over again. Still, even weeks later, he dreams of killing Stiles. The same way, every time. By now, Derek has learned to wake up and find Stiles sitting on the couch in the living room and recognize it's just his brain fucking with him, it couldn't ever really happen – but still, he'd be lying if he said it didn't shake him up, fake or not. 

“All the time,” he tells Stiles, who looks back at him dead-on. 

“Come on,” he smiles a little, “I was just all heart-on-my-sleeve for a second there. Now you have to do the same.” 

Derek has had a half a dozen opportunities to be honest with Stiles about this. Not the nightmares in specific, but about what all this is even _about_. Why he's here, and why Derek even cared about him, and why he still does. In his defense, for at least half of those times not even he was sure of what it was that he felt himself, but now that they're here together and nearly every thing else between them is out on the table, he thinks it's about time he told Stiles the truth. 

It doesn't matter how Stiles reacts. That's what he tells himself as he looks down at his hands, and then up across the room, and then finally at Stiles' face. Stiles looks curious, and tired, and like he has no idea what it is that he just asked. To him, it was an innocent enough question. 

Derek draws in a deep breath, steeling as much of himself as he can, and says, “about you, mostly.” 

Stiles furrows his brows at first, and then he laughs. It's quiet, more of a scoff than it is anything else. “Oh, yeah? What about me? You dream about me annoying you to death, or something?” 

He can't help but smile down at his hands, just a little bit. Stiles can be funny, when he wants to be. “No, not like that.” 

“Then, like what?” 

“Like -” he pauses, trying to think of the best way to put this that wouldn't freak Stiles the hell out. “Do you remember when we first learned each other's names? In the alley?” 

“Hmmm...” Stiles taps his chin in mock thought. “I think I still have the bruises on my neck from that shit. So, _yeah_ , I remember,” he laughs, though, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Sometimes I go back to that moment inside my head and it's like – it's all the same. Except I have to...” he glances sidelong at Stiles, who's listening intently, “...I have these nightmares where I go back to that night, and I shoot you in the head.” 

There's dead quiet after this admission, and that's what Derek had expected. Even having seen it coming a mile away, Derek can't help but wilt a little against the silence. It feels damning. His secret out there for Stiles to look at and see, pick at and analyze with his clever eyes and fingers – Derek feels open and exposed, and Stiles just sits there staring at him. 

Finally, Stiles parts his lips. His voice is very even, not even dipping to indicate a question. “Why would you have nightmares about killing me.” 

“I guess nothing else scares me more than that,” the truth slips out easily, and it's surprising given how much time Derek has spent holding it back. “Peter, and Matt, and anyone else – it just doesn't scare me. You – you dying scares me.” 

“But why are _you_ the one -” 

“Because I feel like I already have.” 

Stiles closes his mouth. He gives Derek this long look, like he's looking at a puzzle he has to put together, or a math problem, or like he sees someone new in front of him for the first time. “Listen,” Stiles starts. He shifts closer to Derek on the couch, facing him, so his knee is almost touching Derek's side, “I have been getting the idea from things you've said before that you think you're the entire reason any of this has happened to me.” He lets that sit there for a second, and then he says, “that's not true.” 

“It -”

“Hey,” Stiles touches him, reaches out and puts his fingers on Derek's arm. “It's not true. I don't blame you. No matter what I've said before when I was mad, I don't.” 

Derek leans into Stiles' fingers just a little, just enough that he feels Stiles' palm against his own skin. He wants to believe that, and Stiles sounds so fucking honest and earnest about it – as though he doesn't second guess it, and never has. “You really should.”

Stiles sighs, a long-suffering one that suggests he's too tired to even bother with this line of conversation, and stares at the side of Derek's face. “Can I ask you something else?” 

He already knows what the question is going to be, and he's more than a little hesitant to answer it – but he nods just the same. 

“Why do you care so much what happens to me?” He moves his hand up to Derek's shoulder, cocking his head to the side as he appraises him in his entirety. “I mean, I don't think I really need to like, remind you, but – I'm literal street garbage.” 

“Not to me.” 

“Okay...” Stiles laughs, just a bit. “It doesn't matter what you _personally_ think, because the fact is -”

“Why does it blow your god damn mind that someone might give a shit about you?” 

Stiles sets his jaw. He's not laughing anymore. “Because no one does.”

“ _I_ do. I've done more than enough to prove that, Stiles.” 

When he tries to meet Stiles' eyes, he finds that Stiles has already looked away. Derek can see the gears working in Stiles' head, as he thinks back on everything that's happened between the two of them since that day in May. The evidence is damning when Derek thinks about it. When they first met, Derek just cared because he was oddly drawn to Stiles, for whatever reason. Time went on, and _caring_ turned into something else, and now they're sitting here and Derek's as good as admitted it out loud. All the information is laid out for him right there, and Derek doesn't know how Stiles is going to react. 

How Stiles does wind up reacting isn't exactly how Derek would've thought. 

Stiles turns quickly, tightens his hand on Derek's shoulder, and kisses him. It's nothing intense, or serious, not the way Derek would maybe want it to be, but it's a kiss just the same. Stiles presses his lips against Derek's once, twice, and then he leans back. He stays maybe an inch or two away from Derek, so they're still close, but able to look each other in the eyes. “You wanted me to do that,” Stiles says; not a question. 

Derek has never kissed another man before. He wouldn't go so far as to say he hasn't thought about it, but he can admit that he's been actively denying wanting to kiss Stiles for as long as he's known him. Not because he's a boy, but because he's always seemed infinitely untouchable. When they first met, Stiles was underage and the embodiment of a disaster, and it's not as though he's in that much of a great place even now. Something about him has always made Derek pause, pull his hand away, not meet his eyes. 

But Stiles is the one who's taken up the initiative, and Derek doesn't have it in him to pull away. “Yes,” Derek tells him. 

“Oh.” Stiles' cheeks color, a rush of red muddying up his complexion, and he turns his eyes down to the floor. “It's been a while since I've kissed anyone, honestly.” 

Derek is about to contest that – because _seriously_? Stiles the whore hasn't _kissed_ anyone in a while? Then Derek remembers the general rule that hookers don't kiss, which Derek always thought was bizarre before. Now, frankly, he's grateful for that. He likes the fact that Stiles hasn't kissed anyone aside from Derek, maybe since he was orphaned at sixteen. It's infantile, because the other things that Stiles has done with who knows how many other people make a kiss look like building blocks, but, _still_. 

“Don't take this the wrong way,” Stiles is closer into his personal space, his knee nearly on top of Derek's leg, “but like – we could've been doing this,” he gestures between them with a finger, “and more, like, weeks ago. I offered, remember?” 

Derek remembers a starving kid offering to blow him. _Unfortunately_ , he remembers. 

“So, I just don't get why you had to...you know.”

He's trying not to take it the wrong way, for a number of reasons. First of all because people paying Stiles for something like that is all that Stiles really knows. Any and all sexual contact he's had with other people has likely been either paid for or taken from him one way or the other. It only makes sense that he just doesn't get the concept of someone just _wanting_ to, and wanting him to want to right back. He tries to understand. But it makes him angry, to be lumped in with all those other pieces of shit who have touched him like this. 

He likes to think he's not the same. He's tried really, really hard to not be the same. 

“I like you,” Stiles says, leaning even closer if it were physically possible. He does that thing he does when he's about to make a little shit of a comment – tilting his head to the side, curving his lips upwards at the corners, _leering_. “You could have it free.” 

“ _Stiles_ ,” Derek shoves him a bit, much to Stiles' evident delight. He laughs, rolling back onto the couch, as though he's just told the greatest joke of all time. “Come on. It's not _funny_.” 

“I think it is,” he argues around another fit of laughter. “If I didn't think it were funny, I'd probably have killed myself by now. That's funny, too, I think.”

Derek palms his forehead and thinks, not for the first time, that Stiles needs some god damn therapy. Inevitably, when all this is done, Derek is going to very strongly suggest it. Still, his lips crack into a thin smile, and Stiles smiles back at him as he sits up onto his knees. 

“I think this is a weird way to kinda – get together,” he gestures, and quickly corrects, “for lack of a better word. But it's – it's nothing. I like you.” He leans forward and kisses Derek again, this time a bit more confident and sure, and then he pulls away. “It's nice to be close to someone. I've never -” he looks away, that same blush coming back onto his cheeks, “I've never felt so close to someone. Even after everything I've – you know. It's not the same as you. I can't explain.” 

Relief is the first thing that Derek feels after hearing that, pure and simple. Just to know that Stiles doesn't think he's like the rest, holy shit, it can't be overstated how much of a fucking relief that is. Stiles separates Derek, clearly and concisely. Derek is stand alone. It's – nice. Jesus Christ, its' nice. 

The second thing he feels is this bizarre surge of affection. Strong and heavy like a dam bursting, maybe the first time he's let himself feel something like this before toward Stiles. It's hard not to feel drawn to him, somewhat endeared even. He's just – Stiles. That's something he can't explain, either. 

“I feel close to you, too,” Derek tells him, and Stiles smirks down at his hands. 

“This is awkward,” he says. 

“A bit.” 

Stiles wrings his hands together for a second, and then he's up, standing on his feet. “Well,” he announces, “I'm – going to go to bed. I'll see you for morning cigarette?” 

“Yup,” Derek agrees, briefly reaching out to squeeze Stiles' hand with his own. “See you for morning cigarette.” 

Stiles pads down the hallway, and then he looks briefly over his shoulder, face unreadable. “You got rid of those pictures?”

Nodding, Derek looks away. “Yeah, I did.” He had thrown them out, or burned as many as he could in the fireplace while Stiles slept. If only it could be that easy to get rid of Stiles' past altogether, if only every terrible thing that's happened to him could be lumped into the fire, turned into ash. 

He mutters a thank you and then vanishes into the darkness of his bedroom. 

In the morning, Stiles is awake before Derek like he nearly always is. Derek actually can't decide if he finds this particular character trait of his endearing or not – it's more than a little annoying sometimes to be the older one, yet he's crawling out of bed an hour or so later than Stiles on a daily basis. But it is nice to come out into his living room to find Stiles already hunched over the breakfast bar eating a bowl of cereal, or watching television, or reading a book on the couch. 

Today, Derek finds Stiles eating a granola bar in the kitchen. When he sees Derek, he smiles, swallows what food he has in his mouth, and then gestures toward the balcony with his eyebrows raised. Derek nods silently, and Stiles grabs his pack of cigarettes off the counter. They meander to the balcony together, and Derek unlocks it, gesturing for Stiles to step out first.

He does, lights up, and then hands Derek a cigarette of his own. 

Once Derek's taken his first drag, Stiles leans forward and kisses him gently on the mouth. Apparently, this is just something they're going to be doing now, kissing and reaching for each other's hands. Neither of them seem to want to talk about it much, to really discuss it - and Derek is fine with it. It's the only exchange they have for a few more minutes, basking in the hot early morning air, birds chirping, cars bustling along down the streets. 

Then, once they're both halfway through, Stiles turns to Derek and says, “can I ask you for a favor?”

“Sure,” Derek shrugs. By now, Derek must owe Stiles at least a couple of favors. A part of him is a little nervous of what Stiles is going to ask, but he doesn't seem the type to ask for anything too extravagant. 

True to Derek's thoughts, Stiles puffs out a smoke cloud and asks, “can you take me to see Scott?” 

Derek had almost forgotten that Scott even existed. They've been camped out in Derek's place for about a week and a half now; Stiles literally hasn't left the apartment in that much time. More likely than not, Stiles is starting to get a bit of cabin fever, stir crazy and the like. Derek would be too, in his position. “Yeah, okay.” 

“He should be at the bar around three,” Stiles stares down the balcony, watching as one of Derek's neighbors from another floor walks her dog across the courtyard on a leash. 

After another quiet moment, Derek clears his throat. “Now, can I ask you something?” 

“Shoot.” 

“How come you wouldn't stay with Scott and his mother after everything happened?” 

Stiles takes a long drag, squinting out into the sunlight. He doesn't seem angry that Derek has asked, but he also doesn't look particularly happy with the topic of discussion. When the silence drags on for a few seconds too long, Derek has half a mind to say _forget it_ , change the topic and move right along. 

Luckily, Stiles starts to speak. “I was just scared. I felt like a burden, and I hate that fucking feeling, and for some reason I convinced myself I didn't have any other options. By the time I realized how stupid I was being, it was too late.” 

Derek scrunches his eyebrows together. “Why would it have been too late?” 

A familiar look of shame and embarrassment crosses Stiles' face as he glances away. “Too much had happened. I had – I had done too much. I didn't' know how to...” he gestures vaguely out at nothing, “...fit myself back into any kind of, like, normalcy.” 

Derek's no stranger to that particular problem. It's the same thing that got Erica and Lydia and Boyd trapped in all this to begin with. Kids spend enough time on the streets, that by the time they're of age and able to make something of themselves, they just think they can't. They think they belong to the streets, and that no one and nowhere else would ever take them. As though the very blood inside of them is nothing but storm water from the drains lined up along the pavement, eyes constantly reflecting buzzing streetlights. “I think Scott would've taken you back,” Derek offers, a little awkwardly, and Stiles frowns. 

“I don't think I deserve that, now.” 

That's terrible. For Stiles to get to a point where he honestly believes that all the things he's had to do just to survive, all the things Lydia had captured in her pictures, all of that somehow makes him unwanted, unwelcome, even in places where there are people waiting for him...that's terrible. Derek isn't sure what the right thing to say back to that would be, since it seems like Stiles will argue the point no matter what he says, so he just stubs his cigarette out and waits for Stiles to do the same. 

At around two o'clock, when Stiles is fresh out of the shower and looking as put together as he ever can in his usual garb, the security guard lets Erica in through the front door. She sees Stiles first and gives him a bit of a blank look, no commentary at least, and then skirts her eyes over to where Derek is sitting on the couch, flipping through the television channels. 

She comes to a stop in between the two of them, and crosses her arms. “What are you guys doing?” 

Stiles shrugs from his spot on the countertop, shuffling his playing cards again and again in his hands. “Nothing.” 

“I can see that,” she looks to Derek, who just sort of stares back for a moment before averting his eyes back to the television. Derek's never been much for doing _nothing_ , in the literal sense at least, so Erica must be pretty amused by the sight in front of her. She looks back at Stiles again, who bears her staring with little more than a pursed lip and an equally blank stare right back. “You look – weirdly more like an actual human being.” 

Stiles smiles, all teeth. “It was the shower,” he tells her, half kidding and half serious. 

It's more a culmination of actually eating at least two portioned meals every day for the past two weeks, clothes that get laundered on a regular basis, and yes, the shower. He looks like any other person his age instead of like street trash. It really makes all the difference. 

After some more awkward hovering on her part, she takes a seat on one of the stools at the island, a couple of feet away from where Stiles has perched himself, and lets out a long sigh. “Mind if I hang out? My apartment was getting fucking terrible and it's not like I have anywhere else to go. So.” Or, at least not anywhere else that isn't Lydia's or Peter's or even Laura's. And she probably isn't in the mood to deal with any of them, so Derek seemed like the lesser of all the evils. 

She looks sad, still, but she's dressed and clean and walking around. Erica never stays down for long, no matter what happens to her. 

“I don't mind,” Stiles says above the rhythmic sound of his cards. “If you don't mind taking a field trip.” 

“A field trip?” She dubiously looks to Derek, who sighs. 

“I'm taking him downtown to visit his friend.” 

“I'll tag along,” she decides with her own sigh. She sounds put out, as though it's a great tax on her health and well being to be dragged down to the slum district on a Wednesday afternoon. Even so, for her own good, she should probably do something aside from lurking the streets at three am under Peter's orders or crying alone in her shitty apartment. After a comfortable silence has passed, Erica speaks up again. “Have you spoken to Lydia?” 

Derek thumps his head back into the couch. He's been trying not to think about Lydia at all. “I haven't even seen her.” 

Erica makes a _hmm_ sound from the back of her throat. When Derek sits up to turn around and look at her, he finds her leaning her chin into her palm, elbow resting on the granite counter top. “She told me that you two aren't on speaking terms.” 

“We're never really on speaking terms.” _Speaking terms_ would denote some level of friendship. Derek is starting to wonder if he and Lydia ever had anything remotely like that. 

“You know what I mean,” she pushes. “She can be a bitch, but you know – she's like, one of only four people in this city who you can trust won't shoot you in the head. So, think about that.”

Four people. Erica, Lydia, Laura and – Stiles. He meets Stiles' eyes across the room, and he ghosts a smile before looking back down to stare at what he's doing with his hands. No, Stiles wouldn't do anything to Derek, and not just because he physically couldn't. Stiles is a decent human being. Saying this to his face might get a scoff and a disbelieving eye roll, but Derek knows that it's true, in spite of all else. 

And anyway, Erica is right. Lydia might not be the very best friend a person could have, but she's...Lydia. Maybe that's the only thing there is to say about her, all other adjectives falling short to describe the person that she has become. 

“What about Laura?” 

Derek shakes his head. No, not Laura, either. Derek hasn't even called her since Boyd died – shit, for all Derek knows, she's left the city, finally, after all her mountains of threats to do just that. Derek doesn't think he'd mind that. 

“Man,” Erica drawls, pursing her lips. “Maybe Peter shouldn't have cancelled morning meetings.” 

Stiles claims shotgun in Derek's car, much to Erica's chagrin, and they drive through the city in the mid afternoon sunshine. In the day, the city always looks completely different than it does at night – almost like it's two separate places across the state from one another. The differences are more palpable during a normal summer season, when people don't have the threat of the Hales or the Raekens hovering over their heads; kids off school, public pools open, ice cream trucks, etcetera etcetera. Now, though it's definitely more alive than it is at night, not every thing is the same it would have been. 

This discrepancy is even more notable down in Stiles' old haunts, the shitty little three block span that Scott's bar is home to. This part of town has always been fucking terrible, but now, it looks like it's been chewed up and spit back out in a saliva covered heap. Businesses boarded up with graffiti sprayed across the wood over windows and police cars on nearly every corner and people walking fast down the sidewalks. Stiles' lips turn down as he observes all of this, what used to be (and what he still might consider) his home in even worse condition than he left it in. 

Stiles slumps lower in his seat and stares pointedly forwards. “I should tell Scott to quit,” he says, and Derek glances at him before turning back to the road. 

“I would've suggested that a while ago.” 

“I've been suggesting it for over a year,” Stiles plays with one of his ratty old shoelaces, frowning. “He insists he has to stick around for my sake, which is just a crock of horseshit. I don't know how much you've been able to gather about him, but he's not exactly...” he waves his hand in the air, “...the kind of person who could make it, in these conditions.” 

“I've gathered that plenty.” Boy, has Derek ever. Scott looks like the kid who goes to pep rallies and scoots around his high school campus on a skateboard. That alone is more than enough evidence that he's not _bad side of town_ hardened. 

“Yeah,” Stiles looks out the window as they slow to a stop across the street from the bar. Derek can make out Scott's bike locked to the dumpster out back, which is just fucking ridiculous and he's lucky it hasn't been stolen yet. “He should quit. It's not like I need him around anymore, right? I mean...” he looks at Derek quickly, and then darts his eyes back to glare pointedly out the windshield. “...I've got you, now. Right?” 

Derek doesn't have to think about it. He nods his head firmly. “Yeah, you've got me.” 

They share eye contact for maybe just a second too long than is necessary or normal, and from the backseat, Erica stares at them with her eyes narrowed down into slits. “Huh,” she intones, spurring Derek to quickly look away from Stiles to pop open his door. Any commentary she has to make on the situation, Derek honestly doesn't even want to fucking hear it. She's an opinionated fuck, and her opinions on Derek getting even more involved with _Stiles_ are likely to not be good ones. 

Scott grins at Stiles the second they file in through the bar door, coming out from around the counter to pat Stiles firmly on the back a few times. “I was starting to wonder about you,” he says, briefly sliding his eyes suspiciously in Derek's direction. “I was thinking that Derek might have chopped you up and sold your parts.” 

Stiles laughs, scrunching his nose up like it's so ridiculous. So, at least the thought of Derek being a crazed lunatic is _laughable_ to Stiles. “Not yet, at least.” 

Unamused, Derek huffs and scuffs his feet against the bar floor. Erica stands back with her arms crossed over her chest, taking in the sight of one of the worst bars in the city with little more than a grimace. 

“What have you been doing?” Again, he gives Derek this look that suggests if he moves even a little weird, Scott will grab the mop handle and whack Derek over the head with it. 

“Watching a lot of Netflix, mostly,” Stiles answers, shrugging his shoulders. “There's not a lot to do when you're hiding out from someone who wants to kill you, I guess.” 

Scott furrows his brow, frown deepening the lines on his face. “You know,” he starts, lowering his voice and moving closer to Stiles as though he's hoping that Derek won't be able to hear what he's about to say, “...my house is still open.” 

“Scott -”

“If you're really in that much trouble, maybe you should get away from certain _people_.” _People_ is said the same way someone else might say _nazis_. Which is both unfair and not at the same time. 

Erica, who's tuned into this the same way she tunes into any other piece of gossip, flicks her eyes between Scott and Derek again and again. She's just hoping someone will get punched - she likes her entertainment the simple way. 

“As if you or Melissa could ever do anything to help,” Stiles says, though there's no real venom in his tone. 

Scott chews his bottom lip and then slowly nods to concede to the point. If Matt tracked Stiles down to Scott's house, there would be nothing that either Scott or his mother could do about it. Probably, they'd all three of them wind up dead. “Maybe once all this is over, then,” he offers in a small voice, patting Stiles on the shoulder. 

Stiles looks like he's heard this many, many times before. These desperate quiet little offers Scott keeps giving him to have a home, to have a mother looking out for him, someone to steer him into a real fucking life. He nods his head, glaring at the floor. Derek knows better than to believe that Stiles is even honestly considering it, and from the dejected and tired look that Scott gets on his face, it's safe to say that Scott knows better, as well. 

Even when the war comes to an end and the city settles back into a pile of dust, the summer will never truly be over, where Stiles is concerned. The streets will stretch on and Stiles will always be a part of them. It's what he thinks he deserves. 

Scott drops the subject after that and offers everyone a drink, herding them off to sit on the stools in front of the bar. Erica orders something with whiskey and drinks it without much commentary, while Stiles and Derek drink water and watch Scott as he mops and wipes down the mirrors. The bar isn't open yet – not for another hour or so, so it's just them for a while longer without even the jukebox playing to fill the silences. 

Although with Stiles and Scott, there aren't very many silences at all. They bounce off of each other the way that only people who have known each other their entire lives can, comfortable even in the face of every thing that's happened between them in these last couple of years. Scott keeps giving Derek that fucking _look_ , and Derek bears this with little more than raised eyebrows and a blank stare, but he can't say he appreciates very much being treated like he's a ticking time bomb, just waiting to destroy Stiles' entire life. 

It might make Derek angry, but Scott has a point. When it's between the two of them, Derek's apartment or Scott's house, Derek or Scott themselves – the right choice is obvious. 

When Scott has to flip the neon sign on to indicate the bar's opening, it's just about time for them to leave. Scott wraps Stiles up in a big hug, resting his chin on Stiles' shoulder and holding him tight and close, almost like he's afraid it might be the last chance he ever gets to be this close to him. Scott has spent the last two years hugging Stiles like that, spending the following days, or weeks, or even months wondering if Stiles was ever going to come back around again. 

It feels personal, so Derek looks away until it's over. Stiles says goodbye, and jerks his head for Derek to follow him towards the back. 

Right as Derek is walking past to follow Stiles, Scott stops him for a just a second with a hand on his arm. He looks to make sure Stiles' back is turned and then he leans into Derek's ear to whisper an address, street number, street name. 

When Derek gives him a confused look, Scott says, “my house. You know just in – just in case.” 

Just in case. Derek nods, and files the address away into his memory. 

They go out the back door into the alley from Derek's nightmares, though it seems much less sinister in the harsh light of day. Nothing but a dumpster, Scott's rickety old bike, and a squirrel scampering away from them. As they walk, Derek clears his throat and sidles up to Stiles' shoulder. “That stuff Scott said in there,” he opens, and Stiles looks away immediately, cheeks turning red in either anger or embarrassment, “it's – it's something to think about.” It's more than just something to think about, actually – it's the only viable option that Stiles has. At least, outside of joining the Hales as Peter had pretended to have any interest in. 

But then, that's not really an option. If it came down to that, it would be like walking the fucking plank. 

Stiles purses his lips and doesn't say anything. He must be fucking tired of always having to argue this with everyone who even remotely cares about him, so he just crunches through the pebbles and broken glass until his shoes meet the solid concrete of the sidewalk. Stiles is stubborn. He just might have to learn the hard way that there's nothing for him out here – it's amazing he hasn't learned that lesson, even now. 

Erica is walking a pace or two ahead of the boys, leading the way toward where the car is parked and glistening in the late afternoon sunshine. Stiles wipes at his forehead, mutters a complaint about the heat, and then Erica drops her feet off the curb to cross the road. 

Not many cars are driving along the streets these days, so when Erica turns her head to look both ways, she has an almost clear cut, unobstructed view of the block as far as her eyes can see. Derek looks as well. There's a cop car facing them, parked along the curb in front of an old boarded up place that used to sell pizzas, a girl coming out from a convenience store, and - 

Derek squints his eyes at the exact moment Erica stops dead in her tracks, skidding to a halt in the center of the road. Stiles nearly goes crashing into her back, but Derek latches onto his upper arm in a vice grip to steady him, pulling him back until they're standing side by side again. 

Erica cocks her head to the side, turning her body until she's facing the street head on. “Is that -” she starts, and doesn't finish. There's no need to. 

It only makes sense. There's only so many places that Stiles would go to in any given day, and Matt knows them all. And even more to the point, there's only one place that Stiles would go to, that Derek would take Stiles to, even with everything else going on. Matt knew all of that. He's got someone like Lydia to follow people around, and he might have personally followed Stiles down to this exact bar dozens of times. Derek is almost sure of it. 

So then, it only makes sense that Matt is there, in broad fucking daylight, walking towards them with intent. He's quick and angry, his steps audible to the three of them even from all the way down the block. When he passes the police car, he doesn't even glance at it – it doesn't matter to him. Nothing matters to him. He's got Stiles in his line of sight, his trophy and key to finally pulling one over on the Hales, and there's not a single thing that could truly stop him, now. He reaches his hand to his hip, and Derek pulls Stiles back on instinct. 

The first shot echoes loud and huge down the street, sounding foreign in the sunlight. Derek's already got Stiles behind an SUV parked up against the curb, huddling him against the back of the thing even in spite of Stiles' flailing limbs and indignant squawks of protest. Derek doesn't even have a gun on him, because he hadn't been thinking and had been a _fucking idiot_ to bring Stiles out here to begin with. Stupid. 

Derek would've thought that Matt is too smart to come into Hale territory with the fucking sun beaming down on him, but apparently, he's at his wit's end. He's desperate enough for _this_. Stiles had been right – the climax was coming, and they just might be in it, right now. 

Luckily, Erica hasn't left her apartment without a gun in five god damn years, not even just to go buy tampons from the grocery store down the street. Derek has just enough sight of her from his spot behind the SUV to see her move out of the way of a bullet that would've grazed her arm. She swears, firing once in the general direction of where Matt is still coming towards them, unstoppable. She flings open one of the doors to the SUV, uses it to duck herself behind, and hisses, “ _god fucking dammit_ ,” out from between her teeth.

A bullet ricochets off of something nearby, lands in the windshield of Derek and Stiles' hiding spot with a definitive _crack_ – even with all of that going on, Stiles is being Stiles. He tries to poke his head out from behind the tire to see what's going on. As though there _isn't_ a murdering psychopath trying to shoot and kill all of them walking towards him. Derek grabs him by the scruff of his neck and pulls him back hard, sending him sprawling on his ass on the pavement with a bewildered look on his face. Better than the alternative. 

Raised voices start calling things from down the block – Derek blurs it out like white fucking noise, too intent on each and every move that Erica makes to even process the words being said. Distantly, he recognizes that it must be the police, telling them to _put your weapons down or we'll shoot_. Even if he can't see it, Derek can imagine they've got both driver and passenger side doors open, using them as shields just like Erica is, pointing each of their guns at Erica or Matt respectively. 

Erica has seconds, if that, to shoot Matt before either he'll shoot her, or the cops will. Derek has been counting every shot she's fired, each of them carefully aimed with intent – unlike Matt, who just keeps firing, and firing, and firing. She's lifting her arm with what must be her last bullet if Derek had been counting correctly, right when the shots from Matt suddenly go silent. The police are still yelling, Stiles is still shuffling around in the gravel, but Derek hears dead silence without Matt's gunshots. It sounds loud in his ears. Matt is reloading. 

Erica fires that last bullet, and her aim is as good as it always was. 

All of this, from Erica stopping in the middle of the road to Stiles' breath catching in his throat as he listens to the unmistakable sound of a body hitting pavement, has taken less than a minute. Thirty, forty five seconds if that. There's more yelling, louder now, the sound of running feet and car doors slamming. Erica lowers her arm, mouth a firm line, and backs slowly away from the SUV, dropping her empty gun onto the pavement. 

Stiles swallows. “Is -” he starts, can't finish. When he moves to poke his head out again, Derek doesn't stop him. Matt had gotten close enough by then that Stiles barely has to crane his neck to find the body – another one he's been forced to see since the day he met Derek, lying there in the sunlight. He stares at it. There's no discernible expression on his face. 

Then, he flops back onto the ground, lips parted. He looks stunned. 

Derek rises back up to his full height and assesses the damage, just briefly. Bullet holes all over the car, shells across the sidewalk, police officers running towards them yelling more things that Derek doesn't care about. Stiles stays on the ground for seconds, his hands braced behind him on the rough concrete. 

By the time Derek recognizes one of the deputies as Parrish, Erica is being grabbed and read her rights. She stands there and lets it happen, saying, “it was self defense,” very pointedly. “He shot first. It was _self defense_.” 

Be that as it may, even with the officers as eye witnesses to exactly what happened, there's a dead fucking body on the sidewalk. The other officer is standing over it, talking into his shoulder piece in a grim tone of voice as sirens go off another few blocks away. Scott has come out from the bar, blinking at the sight in front of him with huge eyes. They'll ask him questions, probably, get a witness statement even though he saw absolutely nothing. Scott eyeballs Stiles for a moment, as though he's considering walking over and scooping him up and putting him on the first bus back to the suburbs, but he just clenches his fists and glares in Derek's general direction. 

“That's Matt Daehler?” Parrish asks, clicking handcuffs onto Erica's wrists. She looks annoyed, but nothing else. She'll get off. She'll _probably_ get off. Derek doesn't know. 

Erica nods her head. 

“You killed -” he hesitates, and then finally his eyes land on where Derek and Stiles are camped out behind a bullet riddled car. He frowns, and then passes Erica off to his partner by her shoulders. As he starts walking towards them, either to arrest them or just question them Derek doesn't know, Derek grabs Stiles and hefts him up to his feet.

He stumbles a bit, maybe still a little in shock, but Derek supports him with an arm around his shoulders and starts pulling him toward where his own car is sitting. One of the windows, the driver's side, has been blown off, pieces of it shattered across the surrounding pavement and likely all over his seat. Nothing he can't fix. 

“Hey,” Parrish starts, holding his hand out to try and stop them. When Derek ignores him, he shifts to catch up and snaps, “ _Hale_.” 

Derek rounds on him, dropping his arm off of Stiles to instead grip onto his shoulder, and scowls. “Bystander.” 

“You were -”

“I don't have a fucking _gun_ ,” he pats his hips in testament to this, and Parrish follows the movement with shrewd eyes. “I didn't shoot anyone, or anything, I just want to -”

“You're a witness to a _homicide_ I need to -”

Derek wishes he did have a gun right about now just to shoot Parrish right between his beady little eyes. Stiles looks between the two of them with a blank expression on his face, maybe not fully processing everything that's going on – Derek just wants to get him out of here. Matt is dead, and that means - 

“Just fuck off,” Derek snarls, tugging Stiles towards his car. He pushes Stiles bodily into the passenger seat even over the sound of Parrish's protests, opens up the driver's side door and swipes the broken glass down into the footwell or onto the street. 

“Stiles,” the deputy tries, catching Stiles' wide-eyed attention. They share eye contact as Derek slides into his seat and slams his door, buckling his seatbelt – when he's situated and gets the car into gear, he looks between the two of them. He remembers that Parrish and Stiles might know each other personally, from back when Stiles' father was alive and the Sheriff, and thinks that that alone explains the tension in their staring match. “Stiles, you don't have to go with him.” 

Stiles doesn't say anything. He leans back in his own seat, finally breaking the eye contact to instead stare dead ahead out the windshield. Derek gives Parrish one last withering glare, and drives away from the curb and the scene behind them. 

They'll come to Derek's apartment and drag him in by force if he refuses again, he knows. They won't arrest him, or put him in jail, but they'll question him until their faces go blue with it. He should do it, for Erica's sake, if his testimony is what stands between her and a murder charge. It doesn't matter, right now. There's time for all of that. 

Right now, he just has to take Stiles back home. 

In testament to this, Stiles finally opens his mouth. “What's going to happen to Erica?” 

“I don't know,” Derek says. 

“What's – if Matt is dead what's going to -”

“I _don't know_.” 

“Is it over?” 

“Stiles,” Derek hisses, but Stiles doesn't even flinch. He just sits up straighter and sets his jaw, meeting Derek's eyes as they sit stopped at a red light. Stiles doesn't blink, and Derek has to look away. “Matt is dead,” he says, under his breath. “Jennifer might take over and keep going, or she might concede. I don't know. Okay?” 

Stiles nods his head. He goes quiet after that, sitting in his seat and nervously twitching his hands, wringing his fingers together and frowning into his lap. Whatever is going through his mind right now, Derek can only guess at. Does a person ever get to a point where watching another person get shot through the head is just commonplace? 

Derek doesn't feel anything but relief towards Matt's death. But what Stiles is feeling – who can even fucking _guess_? For as much as he talks, and talks, he can be tightlipped as a clam when it comes to things that actually fucking matter. 

Once they're back at Derek's apartment, Stiles makes his way to the couch and plops himself down. He takes a second to just put his face in his hands, palms over his eyes, and breathes out a deep, shaky breath. He stays that way for a long moment, silent and withdrawn, while Derek works on emptying out his pockets – wallet and keys on the coffee table. 

“Derek,” Stiles finally says. His voice is quiet, and Derek's name cracks somewhere along the way in the middle. Stiles looks up, stares directly at Derek. He's got this look on his face, in-between crying and not, eyes foggy and lips pulled down into a tight, set frown. “I'm tired of this.” 

Derek sighs through his nose. Everyone is tired of this. 

He comes around the coffee table and sits next to Stiles, knee to knee, and Stiles immediately grabs for him. He takes Derek's hand in his own, and squeezes, fingers probably cutting off the circulation in some parts of his fingers and palm. 

“I hate my life,” Stiles says, so matter-of-fact it has to be true. “I hate – I _hate_ -” 

“Okay,” Derek keeps his voice quiet and soothing, though he's not very much for soothing anyone, and leans his body even closer to Stiles'. “Stiles, it's okay.” 

“No it's _not_ ,” Stiles hisses this as a tear manages to escape from his eye, trickling down until it comes to a slow crawl onto his cheek. “It's not, it's not okay. I never should have – any of this – it's all my fault.” 

Derek doesn't know how Stiles is making his way from point A to point B, with this. Point A being Matt getting shot and killed within Stiles' own eyeline, and point B being that it's somehow, someway, _Stiles' fault_. “How is -”

“I started this whole thing,” he sniffs, shaking his head like he just can't stand it. “I – with Peter – I knew -”

Derek sets his jaw. “Peter isn't your fault.” 

“The _money_. Everything, all of it, I should've known – I didn't know, I didn't -” Stiles breaks off with a heavy sob, and Derek pulls his hand away from Stiles' fingers to give him the freedom to wrap his arm around Stiles' shoulders. Derek holds him like that, dropping his chin into Stiles' hair, and just lets him cry for a while. Really, nothing that Stiles is saying is making any sense. He's in shock. He's eighteen years old, and he got himself wrapped up in all of this mess because he never knew any better and didn't have any other options. A breakdown was bound to come eventually, and Derek is frankly surprised it took the death of the person who was actively trying to _kill him_ to bring it out of him. Either way, this is long overdue, so Derek is just along for the ride. 

“I wish my dad was here,” he says, pressing his face into Derek's shirt. “None of this would have -”

“Yeah,” Derek says, rubbing circles into his back. “I know.” If Stiles' father were still here, then he and Derek never would have met. The entire city would have been different if the Sheriff had never died that night along with Talia – proof of just how deeply people affect the lives of others around them, how one event can change every thing. 

It doesn't do to think about what might have been, not ever, but Derek allows Stiles this, just once. The fantasy of another world where it isn't Derek who's holding him, but his father, and he's not crying over everything that he's done and seen in the last two years, he's crying over something meaningless and small. He wouldn't know just how stupid it would be – he would have nothing like this to compare it to. 

After another few minutes, Stiles calms down enough to breathe right, to stop crying, to sit back and away from Derek to wipe at his eyes and face. He looks strange like this, all muddy-faced and bleary eyed. Like a different person. 

“I'm tired,” he says, voice hoarse. He shifts his eyes and looks at Derek. “Can we go to sleep? I'm just...”

“Yeah,” Derek stands and pulls at Stiles' arm to drag him along. The sun has only just gone down, leaving the city in the blue light of evening, and they have a million things to think about, and Derek has a dozen people to talk to, to sort everything out, but Stiles is tired. He's been through enough that he deserves to sleep through the after effects of what happened today. 

They go into Derek's bedroom and Stiles does little more than toe off his shoes before crawling across the bed and flopping face first into one of Derek's pillows. He lies there immobile, dead to the world, while Derek takes off his own shoes and briefly considers putting on his sleep clothes. It seems like a tax to do so right now, an annoying little burden, and suddenly he's as exhausted as Stiles looks. 

He climbs onto his side of the bed, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. Stiles' breathing is even and slow, so Derek thinks that Stiles might actually already have gone to sleep, out like a light as soon as he hit the pillow. 

Derek closes his eyes. In his head, he sees a slideshow of pictures of Stiles burning, edges of Stiles' face searing off into ash crumbling down into nothing, the king of spades alight right beside him. He thinks of Erica sitting alone in a holding cell demanding her one phone call – hopefully to anyone but Peter, if she's smart. Of Boyd, who never got a funeral and never will, dumped into a grave somewhere alongside a dozen or more Raeken kids in Beacon Hills cemetery. Lydia, wherever she might be, and Laura. It's altogether too much to think about, too much to care about. 

He doesn't know how much time passes before Stiles is gently waking him up with his voice, but when his eyes open again, it's pitch dark in his bedroom. He can barely make out Stiles' body next to his, but he can feel Stiles' hand on his chest, shaking him. 

“Are you asleep?” He asks. 

“Not anymore,” Derek grumbles, hazily blinking his eyes. He thinks about turning his back to Stiles and passing right out again, but Stiles is persistent. It would be a waste of time. “I thought you were.” 

“I can't.” There's quiet for a beat. “I don't want to be alone.” 

“I'm right here.” 

“You were sleeping,” he accuses, as though it's something to be _accused_ of at all, lying in fucking bed in the dark, immobile. “I bet you were having a dream – I can't be in your head with you, you know.” 

Derek huffs, blinking up at the darkness as his eyes adjust. “You _are_ in my dreams.” 

“The ones where I die,” Stiles says this thoughtfully, an air of curiosity to his tone. As though he's really considering what it might be like, to truly be there inside of Derek's dream. To take the place of dream-Stiles and do it for real. “I wish I would die.” 

That gets Derek's attention. He turns over to face Stiles all the way, and he can make out Stiles' body just barely in the dark. His face, the two black holes denoting his eyes, the way he's still lying on his chest. “Don't say shit like that,” Derek snaps. After every thing that Derek has done to keep that from happening, he can't bear to hear Stiles say something like _that_. 

Stiles doesn't say another word for a long time. He stares back at Derek in the dark, maybe blinking, maybe not. When he does speak, his voice has taken on a different quality – gone from tired and agitated down to small and scared. “I want to go back and do everything over. I guess I – I guess I can't do that.” 

“No,” Derek agrees. 

“Maybe then, I'll just – I'll just go. You know? I should find my way out, and go.” 

That scares him a little, to hear Stiles say it out loud. He's said as much before, but something about the particular way he's speaking now, in the wake of everything, it seems so concrete. And it scares him, because Derek knows that Stiles doesn't really belong to anyone or anything, can't stay put for longer than he can stand it, doesn't know how to live if he's not looking for something, somewhere else, over the mountains on his chest. All Derek knows is this city, and all Stiles wants is to leave it. It scares the shit out of him. 

It's the right thing for Stiles to leave. Derek has never been particularly _good_ at the right thing, because he's villainous at best, but for Stiles, he really has to learn.

“Okay,” Derek tells him, and Stiles burrows himself into Derek's chest. He's quiet again, and then, he's asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since I don't really use tumblr anymore (a by-product of having once been in the illustrious Taylor Swift tumblr fandom - legit don't even ask but suffice to say the place is a War Zone ever since Taylor came on and most people from the earlier days just pop in once a week to reblog some pics lmfao) I don't have a lot of places to kinda address stuff like other fic authors do (though if you CAN find me on twitter, mysterious as I'm want to be, you're more than welcome to harass me bc I'm a pretty nice person albeit a little annoying), so I thought I'd do a quick random author's note dead center of this fic to kinda bring up the whole Me Deleting Old Fanfics issue
> 
> It keeps coming up lmfao which blows my mind (though doesn't annoy me at all I swear), but it's just that like - the reason I deleted them is because they were Not Good. I mean I have half a mind to delete every single one of my fics from early 2015 just on principle alone tbh. Fanfic has been my way to spend time learning what my weaknesses are in regards to writing, and those earlier fics are just big fat glowing neon signs of every single shitty writing tic I've ever had. Not to say I regret writing them since I personally feel it's all helped me pinpoint what I need to work on and I've made some improvement, but that said, they're BAD lmfao. Like to me reading those is like reading my own god damn funeral rites I swear to fucking god I can't physically bring myself to even glance at half of it. To top it all off I literally don't even fuckin know what I titled them and my docs folders are..................do u guys remember the forbidden forest in Harry Potter......that's literally....my docs folders......if y'all could see some of the half finished shit I have in there.......
> 
> I mean, I could go through all my weirdly named docs and dig them up, but suffice to say I don't title my draft docs the same as they're titled on ao3 (for fucking real, this fic in my docs is saved as africabytoto.doc. I'm dead fucking serious lmfao). My rambling point with all this is that if there are no wayback links and you can't find someone who has the pdf or whatever the kids are doing these days, then the fic is dead and deceased RIP. 
> 
> Anyway I just thought I'd say something since I've deleted around about ten fanfics by now and I'm shrouded in mystery apparently lmfao


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, sorry about these annoying email notifs 18 times a day lmfao I just wanna get it all up because I keep going back and overediting it and that's bad news bears so here we go

“Obviously Matt lost his mind,” Derek says, leaning back in his chair and making direct eye contact with the deputy across from him. Making good on a silent promise, a pair of Sheriff's County deputies appeared in the security camera footage of Derek's building early in the morning, blinking serenely at the front desk woman, hands perched on their utility belts. Derek had raised his eyes to the ceiling after getting the call on the intercom, given Stiles an annoyed look that was returned with a crunch of Lucky Charms and a shrug. “Walking into this half of the city in the middle of the afternoon to find and kill a hooker. He must have gone crazy.” 

Parrish looks at him steadily, blinking once or twice, before he averts his eyes and lets out a huff. “You're referring to Stiles.” Stiles, who's in another room at the station with a bag of Ruffles being dangled in front of him in exchange for information, Derek is sure of it. 

“Yes.” 

He briefly puts his hand on his mouth, rubbing at his chin in deliberate downward motions. “Why would Matt Daehler even care about -”

“Does it matter?” Derek interrupts, trying to sound nonchalant as though he's more annoyed than he is anything else. Or at least more annoyed than he is _concerned_. Something about the particular way Parrish has always regarded Derek and Stiles even knowing each other has made Derek think that appearing too involved with Stiles might land him in a jail cell, just on principle. 

“I need all the information,” Parrish says evenly, “so yeah, it matters.”

“I told you, Matt went out of his fucking mind.” 

“You just said he wanted to kill Stiles in specific.” 

Derek grits his teeth. For all that Derek and the rest of the Hales have spent most of their time calling the police a waste of tax payer dollars and a bunch of stupid idiots chasing their own tails, they're just not that fucking stupid. He shifts a bit in his seat, a movement that Parrish tracks with his eyes. Right now, he's probably reciting old body language reading techniques inside of his head, what averted eyes mean, what fidgeting hands mean, the inability to sit still, on and on. 

After Derek is silent for too long, he starts up again. “I saw what happened with my own two eyes, all right? Miss Reyes used a registered handgun to kill Matt only after she was shot at herself – it's pretty cut and dry.” 

“Then _why_ -”

He leans forward over the table, jabbing his finger down in the center of it to prod it into the metal with a gentle bang after every other word he speaks. “I need to know if there's anything else left in this city to worry about.” 

There are dozens of things in this city to worry about – but Derek knows what Parrish means in specific. With Matt dead, it might seem to outsiders as though every thing will finally come to an end. He overturned nearly all of his people and resources and was failing miserably. Whoever is left of the Raekens would be insane to pursue any further action. The thing is, they're all insane over there as far as Derek is concerned. 

Rolling his eyes and resigning himself to his fate, that he won't be leaving this room until he tells Parrish the truth or at the very least most of it, Derek clears his throat. “Yeah, Matt wanted to kill Stiles in specific.” 

Parrish looks to a spot on the ceiling, frowning. 

“He had figured out that Stiles – meant something to me. He thought he could use it against me.” 

“Stiles _meant something to you_ ,” the words repeated back sound hollow. “To the point where if Matt killed him...” he trails off, waving his hand in the air to indicate that Derek should finish the thought for him. 

Derek tries to imagine it in his head. Exactly what _would_ have happened if Matt had managed to shoot and kill Stiles in the street? He imagines the scene from his nightmares in broad daylight, wide brown eyes unblinking, and Matt standing over the body. Even in the controlled environment of his own head, Derek can only imagine himself as virtually destroyed. He doesn't get angry in this scenario, he doesn't have the energy for it – at least not to the point where he'd snap Matt's neck. 

If Matt had managed to kill Stiles, then he would have managed to kill Derek, as well. One shot through Stiles' head, and Derek would be immobile. An easy target. Just like that, Matt would have gotten himself an upperhand, finally. Derek says none of this out loud, not a word of it. Even so, Parrish stares at him, and doesn't ask the question again. He just nods his head, looking particularly disgusted or angry or a mix of both at the same time, like he wants to reach across the table and punch Derek's nose into the back of his throat. 

Parrish closes the notepad he had been scribbling in and pockets his pen. It's as good a signal as any that the _interrogation_ is over, so Derek slides his chair out with a screech against the cement floor underfoot. “Am I free to go?” 

He gets a narrow eyed look for that. Silence descends, a stare-off starting up all over again, and Derek thinks he could just get up and walk out even without Parrish's go ahead. 

Right as he's about to do exactly that, Parrish holds a hand up in the air to stop him. “I've known Stiles since he was five years old.” 

Oh, for fuck's sake. Derek thumps back down in his chair all the way, muttering under his breath. He's about to get a _speech_ , he can just fucking tell. He's been waiting for one of the deputies that worked underneath Stilinski to corner Derek and either shoot him, arrest him, or yell at him, depending on their mood – all because of Stiles. The only thing to be surprised about is that it's taken this fucking long. 

“I must have told Sheriff Stilinski a dozen times that if anything ever happened to him, I'd look out for his son.” There's a lengthy pause, with Derek staring down at his lap and grimacing, and Parrish probably loading his gun. “I've done my best. Evidently, it wasn't enough.” 

Evidently, no, it wasn't. Scott couldn't do enough, and neither could Scott's mother, or Allison, or Parrish. “Stiles is -” he struggles to find the right words. “...he's going to do what he's going to do.” 

Parrish doesn't say anything for a moment. When Derek finally looks him in the face, he finds the man to be oddly withdrawn. If Derek had to assign a name to the expression on his face, he would call it defeated, utterly and completely. “He has told us time and time again that you've never done anything to him.” And it's obvious that Parrish doesn't believe that. Derek can tell just from the way he says it. 

The truth is, Derek has done a lot to Stiles. Part of him, the shitty part, always tells him that it's not his fault, that it's just who he is, what he does, and Stiles got himself tangled up in it. But that's not fair. Derek had all the chances in the world to forget that Stiles ever existed, and if he had, maybe none of this would have ever happened. 

When Derek stays silent, nothing but a stone face blinking, Parrish huffs. “I guess he isn't dead. Unbelievably, I think you might be the one to thank for that.” 

Derek feels like smiling, grinning at that, but he doesn't think that Parrish would appreciate it very much. So, he schools his face into indifference, nodding his head and shrugging his shoulders. Derek has done his level best to keep Stiles alive, in spite of all else that he's done, and Stiles _is_ alive. Job well done, for now. 

“I'll still fucking shoot you.” 

Of course he means it. The entire Sheriff's department is sitting on their hands to keep themselves from giving Derek a fatal shot to his heart – the way they see it, the more Hales and Raekens that are dead, the less chance they have of losing the city. What they don't know is that they already _have_ lost the city. They haven't controlled a single inch of any of it since Talia was in power. 

“With Matt dead things are hopefully coming to a stop,” Parrish says, changing the subject abruptly. 

“It depends on what Jennifer does.” 

Parrish blinks at him, and then he smiles, just a little. “I guess you've been busy,” he gestures to the room, and Derek glowers. He's been in here for hours, since six o'clock in the fucking morning. The clock on the wall reads nine thirty am now, every tick of it mocking him. “Jennifer's left the city.” 

“ _What_?” 

“Yup. She boarded a plane to New York last night, a couple hours after Matt was shot.” 

That certainly puts a twist on things. He had been almost sure that Jennifer was either going to go nuts with rage and burst into Peter's safe house, guns god damn blazing, or she would casually take power and continue the work that Matt had started, even though she was really just digging her own grave. 

Up and leaving the city altogether? She certainly had the right fucking idea. Maybe she wasn't _that_ crazy, after all. 

“Yup,” Parrish says again as he gauges Derek's reaction, “looks like summer might be ending earlier than we had thought.” 

When he's finally allowed to leave, he finds Stiles sitting on a bench in the lobby. As Derek had predicted, he's eating a vending machine sized bag of Ruffles, bouncing his leg up and down as he waits. He looks up as Derek approaches, smiles thinly, and then shakes the chips out in Derek's general direction. “Want some?” 

Derek takes a chip between two fingers and then holds it in his palm. “What'd they ask you?” 

Shrugging, Stiles picks around in the remaining chips for a big one. “If I'd ever met Matt before, what I was doing with you, what my relationship with you is -” 

He crunches into his chip and then raises his eyebrows. “What did you say to that?” 

“I said you hold me hostage in your -”

“ _Stiles_...”

Laughing, Stiles holds his free hand up in innocence. “I just said we're friends, is all. And that you make a mean breakfast burrito.” 

Derek wipes his greasy hand off on his pants, and he wonders at that word _friends_. Last time Derek checked, friends didn't make out with each other while the home shopping network plays in the background, which is something he and Stiles have done about a half dozen times since the first time they kissed. Still, Stiles says _friends_ so casually and without any hesitation that it must be what he really thinks that they are – which is fine. It's absolutely and completely fine. Derek always knew that Stiles isn't the type of person who sticks around, so it's just – it's _fine_. 

He clears his throat and cocks his head to the doors leading out into the sunshine. “I guess I should be taking you home.” 

Stiles pours the last of the crumbs from his chips into his palm and then slaps said palm against his open mouth. “Yeah. I hate this stupid place.” 

There's a wall leading down the hallway that houses framed pictures of all the Sheriffs the department has had since its creation, each of them lined up and evenly hung with care. Derek hasn't taken the time to examine that wall very closely, but he's certain that Stiles' father's picture is hanging there, staring out across the hallway to the opposite wall and at anyone who walks past. Derek can imagine that Stiles hates this place very, very much. 

“Do you want me to -” he stutters for a second, looking away and squinting through the windows just for something to do. With Matt dead, and Jennifer out of the state, there's no real _reason_ that Stiles needs to come back to Derek's apartment. Stiles knows it, and so does Derek. “...I mean, I can just drop you off somewhere, if you...”

Stiles licks crumbs off his fingers, wipes those fingers on his old dirty jeans, and smiles. “Well, all my stuff is still at your place, so. I should probably come back for a little while.” 

Derek tries to hide his relief, and maybe does a miserable job at it because Stiles laughs at him as he stands up. He wraps his arm around Derek's shoulders, leaning close as he leads them both out through the lobby doors onto the open sidewalks, warming in the early morning sun. 

“Is it true what they told me in there?” Stiles asks as they walk. Derek hadn't driven them here, since they took the ride in the back of a police cruiser like a couple of criminals – which they are. Case in point, Derek had called and asked Lydia to meet them at the diner down the street to give them a lift home. They hadn't spoken before that at all, not since their big fight at Derek's place, but she had grudgingly agreed with minimal name calling. 

“Is what true?” 

“That summer's over?” 

It's supposed to get up to the nineties today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, on and on until the end of August and maybe even well into September. Even so, there's something palpably different about the heat today, even now with the sun blazing down on them, not a cloud in the sky. It doesn't feel that suffocating anymore. “It might be,” Derek tells him, and Stiles puts his hands in his pockets with a smile. 

They're about a block away from the diner when they run into Peter. He materializes like fucking fog or a ghost, appearing from out of an alleyway right as Derek and Stiles are walking past it. Who knows how long he's been lurking in there – maybe just a couple of minutes, conducting actual business as he is often to do. Or, as is the more probable option, maybe he's been hovering in there among the squalor for several hours as he waited for Derek to come out of the station.

Peter and the Sheriff's department is a lot like vampires and churches. You'd think he were physically allergic to the place with the intensity he avoids it. Then again, unlike Derek, the cops actually have warrants out for Peter's arrest, so it's for his own good he stays five hundred feet away at all times. 

“Derek,” he greets, and Derek barely holds back the eyeroll just from hearing his voice. “Nice to see you.” 

“Sure,” Derek says back, not even bothering to make it sound genuine. No matter the situation, it's never _nice_ to encounter Peter. 

He moves his eyes slowly to where Stiles is standing, and that's the exact moment that Derek remembers Stiles is even there. As soon as Peter's eyes are on him, Stiles physically moves his body back, knocking his shoulder into Derek's. He looks at Peter with an air of either disbelief or sheer terror, edging himself until he's halfway behind Derek's body. 

When Matt was literally firing a gun in his general direction, Stiles had leaned forward and tried to stick his head out to get a good look. When he's been cornered by other men on the streets, he gives them that thin smile and stays perfectly still, cocking his head to the side in amusement. 

Now, just from having Peter's eyes on him, Stiles shrinks back and tries to make himself as small as possible behind Derek. As though he could make himself disappear into thin air if he tried hard enough. 

Derek remembers the way that Stiles had acted that night, months ago now, in Peter's limousine. Oddly quiet and subdued, which Derek knows now to be completely opposite of Stiles' personality, looking like an animal who had been trapped in a cage after being lured inside with food. Derek had thought in that moment that Stiles was terrified of Peter, and it turns out that Derek was right. Out of all the people in the world that Stiles could be rightly petrified of, from his clients, his pimp, to Derek and Lydia, Stiles has chosen Peter to be his own personal boogeyman. It speaks volumes of Peter's character for him to be selected as the ultimate villain in a city full of nothing _but_ villains. 

He wonders, not for the first time, what it is that Peter has ever done to Stiles to make him this terrified. 

Peter observes Stiles' reticence with little more than a small smirk, before turning his full attention back to Derek. “I just wanted to make sure you got out before spilling any old family secrets.” 

“Okay,” Derek says, feeling Stiles' breath on his neck from how close he's pressing himself against Derek's back. “I got out and I kept my mouth shut. So.” 

Peter smiles at him with all his teeth. “And you heard about Jennifer.” 

“I did.” 

He looks down the street and takes in a big breath of the city air, inhaling it and then exhaling it, leaving that same grin in place on his mouth. He looks a little deranged, and that's not anything new to write home about. “What did I say when all of this started?” 

Derek flips through his mental rolodex of things that Uncle Peter has ever fucking said – it's hard to settle on just one in particular. Even simply picking the most insane thing he's said is a close race. Every diatribe he's ever had was filled with gems that he and Erica would repeat in mocking tones of voices as soon as they were alone. 

“I said we'd take the city back for ourselves,” he holds his arms up, gesturing up and down the street and to the sky. As though this city is the only place on earth, the _best_ place on earth, the start and the end of it all, and it's _his_. “I guess you owe me, now.” 

Ah. So that's why Peter has waited him out in an alleyway. He wanted to gloat in Derek's face, scare the shit out of Stiles for the fun of it, and then walk off cackling to himself. It's no more annoying than anything else Peter has ever done, but Derek feels like punching him in the face just all the same. 

They stare at each other for what seems like a long time. Peter is looking at him like he's waiting for Derek to do something, maybe to shoot him right there in the street. Derek could, and part of him itches to do just that – there are no familial ties left between them as far as Derek is concerned. Like Laura had said, Peter is no _family_. 

He's the last thing standing between the city and some semblance of safety. Peter knows it, and he knows that Derek knows it. Most of all, Peter knows that there's an inherent difference between the two of them, in that even though both of them would willingly shoot the other with no hesitation given the opportunity and the right setting, they've got different reasons. Peter would kill Derek just to keep what he has, and Derek would kill Peter just for the shit of it. 

Though with the way Stiles is looking at Peter right now, Derek thinks he finally has a fucking motive to get rid of him. If Peter ever comes near Stiles again, Derek will kill him. It's that simple. 

“I'll see you at Pacers, I assume.” He gives one last sweeping glance in Stiles' direction, before he turns around and meanders his way down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets.

As soon as he's out of hearing distance, Derek scoffs and turns around to walk to their initial destination. Stiles doesn't dig his feet in when Derek tugs on his arm to get him walking, but he seems particularly unhappy, now, where before he was fine. Derek doesn't know what he's supposed to say, because god only knows what Stiles is thinking about, what memories that he'd been repressing are floating their way back to the surface. So he just puts his hand on the small of Stiles' back and pushes him forward, looking over his shoulder once to see Peter in the distance. 

They might be wrong, Derek thinks, glancing at Stiles' tight lipped frown and blank forward-stare. The summer might not be over, just yet. It's childish to assume that with the Raekens gone, all of their problems will vanish along with them, taken to New York in Jennifer's suitcase. 

Like Derek said – of all the villains, Peter might be the king. Nothing will ever end while he's still alive. 

In the diner, Lydia is waiting for them with a magazine open in front of her on the table, a steaming cup of coffee and an empty plate of what might've been an omelet sitting on either side. When she looks up and sees Derek and Stiles walking towards her, she gives them a pursed lipped glare, and then slaps her magazine shut. 

“Let's go,” she says in lieu of an actual greeting. 

“Hold on a second,” Derek looks at Stiles to the left of him, hovering silently even as Lydia stands up and smooths out her shirt, “are you hungry?” 

Lydia huffs her annoyance at having to stay here for even another second, but Derek ignores her. 

“I could eat,” Stiles says. They never ate dinner the night before, and they've been in that stupid police station for the entire morning wiling their time away. Derek is so hungry he'd eat the booth itself, but Stiles simply seems like he could just use a pancake or two to brighten his spirits. 

“We'll eat,” he gestures to the booth for Stiles to climb inside, which he does with no grace or decorum whatsoever, and then Derek slides in beside him on the same side. Lydia stands there with her hands on her hips, looking markably annoyed. Derek gives her a raised eyebrow. 

Like all the other times before when she and Derek have fought, neither of them offer any kind of an apology for anything that they said or did to one another. Derek doesn't know anymore if it's just that they don't need to apologize to each other at this point in their relationship, or if they're both just too shitty to ever own up to their own misgivings and mistakes. 

It doesn't matter either way. Lydia huffs, and sits back down, goes on to watch Stiles eat a pile of chocolate chip pancakes. It's as close to a resolution between the three of them that they may ever get.


	12. Chapter 12

Derek thought that maybe Stiles would just grab his bag and stuff it full of all the things he had sprawled across the guest room floor, clothes and worthless trinkets and miscellaneous cards, and then be gone to do whatever it is he felt that he had to. Derek didn't want that, but it was the most likely end to their time together. 

Instead, Stiles sits down on the couch and props his feet up on the coffee table, knees spread, looking pensive. 

He's been a bit more subdued since running into Peter, less quick with any sarcastic jibes to throw at Derek, and now doesn't seem to be any different. He doesn't watch or pay attention to Derek emptying his pockets, untying his shoes and leaving them in their designated spot – he just stares straight ahead at the blank television screen with his lips puffed out in thought. 

When Derek approaches and asks if he wants to watch something, Stiles slides his eyes over to lay that blank look directly on him. Derek looks away, because he's not sure what Stiles is about to say to him. There are just so many things they could have to say to one another, after every thing they've been through, and very few of them are things that Derek particularly wants to hear out loud. He'd rather watch tv with Stiles and drown out the rest of the noise with mindless nothing. 

Stiles might be prone to go along with that, on a regular day, but today, apparently that won't be the case. “Are you afraid of Peter?” 

Yeah, of course Derek is afraid of Peter. Not so much in the sense of worrying that Peter might hurt him, or kill him, but more in the sense of what he's capable doing to anyone else. Or, even just to the city at large. Derek doesn't say any of that. “Are _you_ afraid of Peter?” 

Stiles scoffs and turns his face away, frowning. Derek knows perfectly well that Stiles is afraid of Peter, but he also knows that Stiles will never come out and admit to it. He's got too much pride for that. “I meant, are you scared he's going to, like, I don't know. Make things worse?” 

“In the city?” 

“Yeah, in the city.” 

“He's already made things worse in the city,” Derek sits down next to Stiles on the couch, jostling Stiles' limbs a bit as he does so. “In case you've already forgotten.” 

“I _mean_ ,” Stiles thumps his head back on the couch, sounding put out beyond all belief, “we keep saying things are over, but – Peter is still out there.” 

“Stiles. I don't want to talk about this.” 

“You don't want to _talk_ about this?” He repeats the words like he doesn't understand how they fit together to form a sentence at all. 

“No, I don't. I don't want to talk about this, think about this, or – anything. With _this_.” 

Stiles stares at Derek's profile, eyes shifting all along his jaw, the set of his lips, his eyes, the crease in his forehead. He looks like he wants to start an argument. Derek really doesn't think he can take that from Stiles, not now. Not after everything. If he starts trying to fucking argue, Derek is going to lock him in the guest room and leave him there until he can fucking relax. God knows when that would even be – it might take years for Stiles to ever forget about Peter. It _will_ take years. 

But, Stiles doesn't start a fight. “I guess I don't either,” he admits this like it's a crime. “I don't fucking know what else there is to talk about. My whole life -” the fragment hangs there for a moment, Stiles opening his mouth as he tries to figure out where to end the whole sentence. “...I don't have anything else.” 

Neither does Derek. Both of their entire lives center around what happens in the streets and who controls them. He never realized how fucking lonely that is, so lonely it's like they're the only two people left alone shouting off the balcony with no one to answer them. Other people have relationships, and families, and school, and work, and – _lives_. 

Stiles and Derek have the city. Unforgiving and cold. No, Derek doesn't want to fucking talk about that. 

“Do you remember when we first met?” Stiles starts up, moving his legs to prop them underneath himself on the couch, sitting back on his haunches and hovering over Derek's head. “I was thinking about it earlier – I don't know, it's just funny. I really thought you were going to kill me.” He laughs, like he truly thinks that's _funny_ , now. 

“I guess that is a little funny,” Derek says, smirking down at his hands. 

“All those stories that people tell about you – like, about how you kill people, or whatever.” Or _whatever_. “Is any of that true? You can tell me. We have a soul connection, now, so you can say anything and there's no judgment.” 

A _soul connection_. Right. Two people who have seen enough shit together to last other people a lifetime makes a soul connection. There might be no better word for it. “Theo was the first person I ever killed.” 

In the wake of this admission, Stiles looks surprised. His eyebrows raise up into his hairline and he parts his lips, the perfect picture of shock and disbelief. “I said you don't have to _lie_ -”

“I'm not lying.” Derek shrugs. “I never killed anyone before that. I never had a reason.” 

Stiles churns that information around in his head, so hard Derek can see it all working behind his eyes. He processes it, and then he leans forward, just enough that Derek can smell his deodorant, the cheap shitty stuff he steals from bins in hotels. “I was the reason.”

Derek lets out a breath through his nose. There's no use in denying that shit anymore. “Yeah, you were.” 

Stiles turns away, and then he quickly looks back, a curious look on his face. “Do you love me or something?” 

It's such an insane question, Derek can't help but laugh. It's a startled sounding thing, more of a cough than it is a real laugh, but at least Stiles doesn't seem offended. He just leans back a little and waits patiently for his answer, eyebrows raised. 

That means Derek has to think about it. 

He can honestly say he's never loved anyone his entire life. There's familial love, which he had for Talia, and he has for Laura on her good days, and there's platonic love, which he might have for Erica if he thinks long and hard enough on it. But the thing is that the word itself gets stuck in his throat along with all the other things he can never bring himself to say. He physically struggles to say it. Christ, he can't remember the last time he even said _I love you_ to anyone, much less to someone in a romantic way. Derek's never been with anyone like that, like _serious_ , like _other half_ type of shit. Maybe he just never saw the point in it. 

And, Stiles. Stiles is a person that no one can truly _love_ , because he pushes everyone away from himself, keeps them all at arm's length, sometimes even greater lengths, too scared to let anyone that close. But he's worth enough to Derek that he's gone and done all of this, and maybe _that's_ enough. He's unfamiliar enough with the feeling of being so self-sacrificing that it might be, it just _might_ be...

Then, it doesn't matter. He can't make himself say it. 

“I don't think so,” Derek says, keeping his eyes downcast.

Stiles nods his head. Derek doesn't look directly at him, mostly because he physically can't, so he has no idea what expression Stiles is wearing, how he's taking this information. If it hurts him, or if he feels nothing. “Well, good,” he says, no real conviction. “You shouldn't, anyway. It's bad business to have people falling in love with me left and right.” 

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose and huffs through his teeth. “Do you always have to remind me -”

“Yes, I really do.” His voice is firm, a no-nonsense tone, which coming from Stiles is just something else. “Yeah, I have to remind you. What I do – you know. I'm no one you bring as a plus one.” 

Of course he's not like that. It's impossible for Derek to imagine Stiles in a nice restaurant, in nice clothes, going to the movies, meeting someone's parents. He's not anyone that someone could ever love – Derek should fucking know that. He really fucking should. 

“I still like you, though,” Stiles says this like it's nothing. “You like me well enough.” 

“What is the _point_ -”

“It's just something to talk about. You said you didn't want to talk about any of that stuff, and there's literally nothing else to talk about except for you and me, so here we are.” He holds his arms out, smirking, before he scoots further across the couch, right into Derek's personal space. He leans in close, so close that his lips could touch Derek's ear if Derek even so much as twitched, and says, “tell me you like me.” 

Derek shivers, thinks about moving away from Stiles' breath on his neck, but – doesn't. He stays exactly put. “You know I _like_ you.” 

Long fingers wrap around Derek's neck, just south of rough, almost like Stiles is thinking about strangling him for a second, but instead they just rest there. A weight to remind Derek that Stiles is there, _right_ there, that they can touch each other. “You remember when I said you could have it -”

“Jesus _Christ_ -” Derek grabs Stiles by his wrist, pries him off of his neck, and pushes him back into the couch cushions. Stiles flops back, a startled laugh bubbling out of his throat, but Derek isn't fucking laughing. “I told you not to bring that shit up again.” 

“What?” Stiles is still snickering, eyes bright with amusement. “I remember you saying you wouldn't _pay_ me, but that's a completely different fucking thing.” 

“Do you even understand the god damn difference?” 

Stiles looks affronted, his laughter dying in his throat as he stares up at Derek from his spot in the cushions. He's angry, suddenly, a complete one-eighty in the span of two seconds. “What the _fuck_ is that supposed to -”

“Would I be wrong to assume you were a virgin before you went out and -”

“That's none of your _fucking_ business -”

“I just can't do this,” Derek shakes his head firmly, trying to convey as much sincerity into his voice as possible. It's hard, when he _can_ do it, wants to, even, but he – can't. He just can't. “It wouldn't be right. With everything you've been through -”

“What I've -” now he's indignant, mouth opening and closing around startled sounds coming from the back of his throat. Then, he sits back up, crossing his arms over chest. “Are you going to fucking ask me if I'm, like, having _trauma_ , right now? About someone touching me?” 

“It's -”

“I don't wanna – I don't wanna do that. Holy _shit_ , I don't wanna talk about that, all right?” He turns away, cheeks turning a muddy red. “I'm not some fragile little kid who needs someone to – I'm _fine_. I knew what I was doing all those other times before, and I know now!”

Derek rests his forehead in his hand and shakes his head. Stiles never knew what he was fucking doing. If he had fully understood all of the consequences, then he never would've done any of it, but here they are, now. “I just don't want to be something you add to your _bad thoughts_ journal in _therapy_ someday -”

“Oh, fuck you. _Therapy_.” Stiles laughs, like it's the funniest god damn thing he's ever heard. “There's no therapy, okay? I just – listen to me -” He moves closer, just like before, and Derek thinks again that he should move away, get away, before anything else can happen, but he stays still. “I don't know how to word this right, but I'm just gonna dive right in.” 

“I don't think...”

“I know I've never been with someone for real before. I'm not a stupid idiot, believe it or not, I understand that there's a difference. And I'm not going to think you're just like one of them, because I've already told you I don't think about you like that.” 

True, Stiles has said that before. Derek just keeps having a hard time convincing himself that he fully believes it. He feels malicious for even thinking about Stiles that way, but still, he keeps coming back to those thoughts again and again. It won't leave him be. 

“I know there's a difference,” he repeats, voice lowering just slightly. “I don't think that you and I are, like, in love or some shit like that, but I like you, and you like me, and I just want to...I just want to know what it would be like.” He nearly whispers the last words, like a secret just between the two of them, trapped forever in the confines of this moment and never to be spoken again. “With someone who cares about me. Is that – is that wrong?” 

Derek pulls his face out of his hand and tries to look at Stiles, but he can't. He knows that as soon as he does, he'll finally give in to not just what Stiles wants, but what he himself wants. Has wanted. 

What Stiles wants – a normal experience with another person – isn't wrong at all. All the messy, ugly encounters with people he's had over the last two years, and none of them could ever come close to the feeling of really _being_ with someone. There must be a certain misery associated with having sex with someone and then having money thrown in your face, a certain sinking feeling in the chest. The thought that you're worthless, empty, that you're nothing. 

Sex isn't supposed to make you feel that way. Even Derek knows that. 

“I want you to be close to me,” Stiles says, putting his hand on Derek's cheek until they finally meet each other's eyes. “I want you, _want_ , fucking _want_. Do you...?”

Stiles' eyes are wide and serious as they search Derek's face. Derek sees so much there, in the flecks and lights of Stiles' eyes, of what he's seen and done and been through, and of what he wants. He doesn't see any trickery, or a lie, or like he's just saying what he thinks Derek wants to hear. 

He looks like he means it. That he just wants Derek, plain and simple. The way normal people want each other. 

“Yeah,” Derek finally admits, voice raspy. “Yeah, I want you.” 

“Okay,” Stiles says back around a breath of relief. “Then kiss me.” 

Derek does. They kiss each other, pulling their bodies so close that Derek can't imagine what it's like to not have Stiles pressed up against him, is loathe to find out what space between them would even feel like. Stiles is not shy, and of course he wouldn't be, but he blushes when Derek traces the mountains on his chest with a finger, as though no one's ever done that to him before. 

Not a second of what they do together feels anything but real, and right. Derek forgets, for the time being, that they are who they are. He hopes that Stiles forgets, too – he hopes that Stiles feels what he wanted to feel. Like a person. Like he's wanted. From the way that Stiles looks at him, just once or twice, like he's never been touched like this before, never felt anything like this – that says enough. 

They kiss, after, and there's no money, or promises, or anything but just the two of them. Stiles says he's never felt so close to someone before, like he's said time and time again, and Derek has to agree with that. Stiles makes him feel less alone, in his life, in this city. There aren't enough words in the world to explain just how much that means to Derek, just how few people in his life he can say the same about, so he can't say anymore. 

It's not even awkward or strange, when it's all said and done. Stiles and Derek get dressed, and as soon as Derek's belt is buckled, Stiles is pulling a Chinese takeout menu off the coffee table and scrutinizing it very intently. He smiles, looks at Derek, and says, “I haven't had Peking City in _forever_.” 

So, they order the food to Stiles' specifications, as usual, turn on the television, and they don't talk about it. Derek doesn't feel bad about what they've done, because it'd be impossible for him to feel anything but _good_ about it – but he does think that it was almost like a door closing. The ending to something that they won't ever be able to get back. It might be best that way, or it might not. 

Halfway through the movie and a third of the way through the food, Stiles swallows and gives Derek a look. A look that Derek has learned to read as the _Stiles is about to ask a question_ look. “What are we gonna do now?” 

There are about a dozen things that Stiles could be referring to, so Derek asks, “what do you mean?” 

“I mean – I sort of got used to this.” He points his fork around at the apartment, his shoes in a clumsy heap by the table, his deck of cards fanned across the kitchen counter, all the markings of his presence here. “Being on the run and stuff. It was sort of fun.” 

“No, it wasn't.” 

Stiles laughs, his whole body shaking with it. “No, it wasn't.” A beat passes, Stiles poking around at his rice without taking a bite. “Well, maybe. I think – me and you -”

Putting his own fork down, Derek gives his full attention to Stiles – and he waits. He waits for an explanation, even just one fucking word, _anything_ to put a name to whatever “me and you” means when it comes to Stiles and Derek. God knows Derek couldn't define it if he fucking tried, though he has a few ideas in mind of what he would _want_ from Stiles. Things he can't ask of him. 

But, Stiles just spears a piece of broccoli and shrugs. “I just got used to it, is all.” 

Yeah. Derek got used to it, too. “What are _you_ going to do?” 

Stiles swallows, not meeting Derek's eyes. “Oh, you know. Back to the old grind, I guess. Same old same. You?” 

Peter had said _see you at Pacers_ as a clear indication of exactly what he thinks Derek is going to do with himself now that the turf war is over and the city belongs to the Hales once more. Everyone probably expects Derek to turn right back around into partying, doing nothing at all with his life. “Yeah, same. Same old same.” 

Letting out a huff, Stiles nods his head. “So, pretty much just like before, huh?” 

Before. Before Stiles and Derek ever met each other. It's strange how a time before Stiles seems nearly inconceivable now, like Derek can't picture his life without Stiles somehow fitting himself into it. There's no place for him here, now that everything is over, but Derek hates to think of the space that he'll leave behind. 

Stiles looks at him for just a moment too long, as though he wants to say something. Just like all the other times that he's had the opportunity to say something that he should, Stiles just turns away, focuses back in on his food. 

They eat in silence, knees touching on the couch, with the knowledge that by morning, they'll both be the people that they used to be before one another. Stiles will go back to the streets, his old fair weather friend waiting for him underneath all the lights, and Derek will go back to days and nights that bleed into one another as though he's not even really _living_ at all. 

Unhappy, the both of them. Miserable.

+

The following morning reminds Derek a lot of the feeling of the end of a vacation, oddly enough. Stiles gets up before Derek like he always does, only this time, Derek isn't dead asleep when he does so. Derek wakes up when the bed starts to shift with Stiles' worming around, and hears it when he finally sighs and pushes the covers off of himself to slide out of the bed altogether. He lies there and listens to Stiles pull open the door and shut it softly behind himself. Derek wouldn't have been surprised if Stiles had just gone right ahead and left without even saying anything to Derek, gone like he was never there at all.

Still, when Derek comes out fifteen minutes later, he finds Stiles in the kitchen rifling around through the cupboards. He pulls down an entire box of granola bars, peers inside, and then dumps the contents into his open and waiting backpack. Glancing over his shoulder, he gives Derek a lopsided smirk. “It's okay if I take some of this, right?” 

Even before Derek has answered, Stiles is grabbing at a box of pop tarts and doing the same to them as the granola bars, stuffing them in his bag along with his clothes. They'll all get crushed and smooshed into crumbs, probably, but Stiles won't care. “Yeah, it's fine.” 

“Cool.” A banana, a sleeve of crackers, and then he's onto the fridge. There's not much in there aside from the leftovers from their Chinese food last night, so Stiles just stares into it for a second before shutting it with a shrug. He zips his bag up and it groans in protest against the excess food, but closes all the same. 

Stiles slings his bag up on his shoulders, and he looks a little ridiculous. The thing is so giant that it's almost like a big old turtle shell he's gone and strapped to his back, like he could curl up underneath it and it would eclipse him completely. He stands there for a moment, awkwardly shifting his eyes all around the apartment, and then he meets Derek's eyes with a thin smile.

“Welp,” he says, a casual shrug of his shoulders. “I guess I better get a move on.” 

He takes a step forward, toward the door, and then he pauses mid-step and scratches at his cheek, furrowing his brow and looking by all counts completely uncomfortable. Derek stands there with his arms crossed in the kitchen, watching as Stiles just hovers there for seconds on end. 

Finally, Stiles clears his throat. “Thanks for – you know. Letting me stay here.” 

“No problem.” Derek should have more to say than that, and he does, but he doesn't think it would do either of them any good to go on waxing poetic. It would just make everything even more awkward than it already is. 

Stiles blinks a few times, nods his head, and then moves along with measured steps toward the door. It doesn't feel like the right way to say goodbye to one another, but both of them are apparently too busy avoiding saying anything at all to even bother thinking about the _right_ things to say. Stiles shuffles along, mere seconds from being on his way back across the city to where Scott is waiting for him along with a myriad of other undesirables, and then he stops mid-step, sneakers squeaking on the wood floors. 

“Oh,” he intones, turning to stare pointedly at something on the coffee table. Derek takes a look, and sees that it's one of Stiles' ratty old hoodies, balled up and waiting for him there. There's also a deck of his cards, which he treats like extra limbs, and a book Derek had told him he could keep. He stands there fiddling with his backpack straps a moment, probably thinking there's no way in hell he'd be able to fit them into his bag with all the other stuff he has in there, frowning. 

“You want to borrow a bigger bag?”

Stiles deflates with relief, nodding his head. “Thanks.” Pulling his bag off his shoulders, he unzips it and begins to unceremoniously dump everything out onto the coffee table, smiling a little ruefully in Derek's direction as he does so. 

Derek turns on his heel and pads down his hallway, all the way to the end, where a closet full of extra linens and random miscellany sits relatively untouched for most of the year. In the spring, he packs his winter shit up in the shelves, and in the winter, he digs it all back out again. 

He sifts through piles of sheets and comforters, big coats and other general outerwear, in search of his luggage bags. Derek doesn't travel that much, as anyone could imagine. Last time he went anywhere, it was literally to the summer house in the mountains fifty miles west; not even that feels like a real escape from the city.

As he's unearthing a suitcase from beneath the coats, he hears his front door open and close. That in and of itself isn't alarming, because it must be someone on the pre-approved visitors list he gives to security and the bodyguard that stands outside his door if they're just waltzing right in, so he doesn't pay it that much mind. He manages to find the big backpack Laura had given him for a hiking trip she tried to force him to go on, to no avail since the tags are still on the zippers of the thing, and examines it for a second or two. Looks big enough. 

With the bag dangling from one hand, he walks back down the length of his empty, sunless hallway, coming out into the mouth of his living room. Stiles' things are still all over the coffee table, his old bag tossed off to the side, but he's not standing there anymore. Derek briefly thinks that he might've gone to use the bathroom before leaving, but when he scans his eyes over to the open floor of his dining room, he finds Stiles there. 

Derek doesn't startle. After living long enough with his family, and with Peter specifically, there's not a lot of _shock value_ to be had when turning around and finding that someone's got a gun pressed to another person's temple in your own fucking house. When Derek locks eyes with Peter, he does little more than throw the bag in his hand onto the floor with a _thump_ , curling his lip into a sneer.

Stiles has his long fingers curling around where Peter's forearm is pressed against his neck to keep him in place, as though Stiles had been trying earlier to claw Peter off of him but is now resigned to his fate. He looks at Derek, eyes big in his head because he thinks he's about to die, and then quickly looks away. 

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Derek demands, taking a single step forward. 

Peter steps back, squeezing Stiles' neck harder to elicit a choked off whimper. Derek stops walking, gritting his teeth. “What does it look like?” 

“It looks like you're trying to kill an eighteen year old hooker in my apartment for no god damn reason,” Derek dead-pans, and Peter gets this look on his face. 

It's one that Derek has seen before, like when he told Erica to kill off her dealers, or when he told Derek that he wanted to send the city into chaos all for the sake of power. It's that wild-eyed look, mouth a grim line, jaw set tight, in a way that suggests that he'll do anything, anything at all, to get what he wants. “Don't think I don't know what you've been _up_ to,” he accuses, and Derek palms his forehead. 

“What I've – what I've been _up to_?” He gestures around himself to his place, at the innocuity of it all, but Peter just looks at him, unimpressed. “Sleeping? Eating?”

Peter laughs, pulling Stiles along with him a couple of steps to the left so that Stiles' sneakers squeak along on the floors as he tries to dig his heels in, to no avail. “You think I haven't caught on to what you're trying to do to me,” his voice is verging on hysterical, borderline insane, “you must think I'm a fucking idiot.” 

It becomes clear to Derek in that moment, looking into Peter's eyes and seeing nothing there but fear, looking at Stiles to find him staring pointedly at the floor, terrified for his life, what all of this is about. Derek isn't dealing with someone who he's going to be able to talk down from shooting Stiles through the head, no. Peter is going to shoot Stiles no matter what Derek says, if he gets the chance. 

This is a paranoid, scared, and psychotic person. There's no reasoning with that. Derek rubs his forehead and tries to think, knowing that if he tries to approach him, Peter will shoot, and if he says the wrong thing, Peter will shoot. “What does Stiles have to do with _any_ of this?” Derek growls. 

“Matt was right to assume that _this_ ,” he leans in close to Stiles' face, and Stiles desperately tries to angle his head away, out of the trajectory of Peter's breath, “is the only way to get through to you. You want to take my power so bad -”

“ _What_?” 

“- I'll just take something of yours right back.” 

Choosing his words very carefully, keeping his tone as even as possible, Derek says, “I don't want to take your power, Peter.” 

Again, with the laughter. Derek guesses he would find it unsettling, especially the manic quality of it, if he hadn't heard it hundreds of times in his life already. Stiles, on the other hand, looks spectacularly petrified. “Bullshit. All of you, everybody in the city wants to be in my spot. I've seen the way you look at me -” with burning and total hatred, “- you want what I have. Why do you think I convinced Theo Raeken to kill your little friend?” 

This is another thing that Derek just isn't shocked by, at all. He had known that Peter was pulling the strings on everything since the start of this whole mess, and though he never outright suspected Peter of doing something so fucking despicable just to eliminate Derek as a threat, it is no fucking shocker to find out that he did. Peter might have even been the one driving the car that dropped Theo off, and he might have known all along that Derek killed Theo – playing innocent and demanding to know who did it, just one big show and an act for him. 

“If I'm such a threat to you, why don't you just go ahead and kill _me_?” 

“Because what's the fun in that? I don't want to _kill you_ ,” he drags the barrel down Stiles' jawline, pressing it into his neck – the exact spot that Derek had shot Theo in. “I just want to remind you of all the ways I can keep you and everyone else in line.” It's why he pretended to have an interest in recruiting Stiles, just knowing it would drive Derek mad to think there was nothing he could do to stop it, just like there was nothing he could do to stop _anything_ Peter set his eyes on. “And aside from that,” he grins, all of his teeth out in two perfect rows, “I've killed enough of my own bloodline to get to where I am today.” 

“You -”

“It's not easy to do what I do, but I do what I need to in order to keep this city from going to the dogs. Talia was just going to ruin everything, all her stupid rules, going to meet with the Sheriff -” 

Derek swallows and looks away. If he says what Derek thinks he's going to say, he's going to make a mistake. Matt killed Talia, he knows this, the bullets they found in her body were Raeken bullets, it was Matt, or Theo, or any number of their little lackeys, Derek convinced himself of this, is still convincing himself of this even as -

“...if I hadn't taken care of that, none of us would be here today, do you understand that? What I've done for you -”

Bile rises in Derek's throat, he sees spots around the edges of his vision. All the horrible things he either suspected Peter of doing or flat out _knew_ that he'd done, none of it compares to this. Peter killed Derek and Laura's mother, stole a Raeken gun and left her to die in the forest, left Derek and Laura to grieve, unable to do anything but follow Peter's lead. All for, for _what_? 

Realization dawns on Stiles slowly. He comprehends what was just said, looks at Derek and reads the expression on his face for what it is – and he starts struggling harder. He curls his upper lip and hisses, “you killed my _father_ ,” voice rough around Peter's arm restricting his throat. 

“Stiles,” Derek warns, holding one hand out. If Stiles makes the wrong move just out of anger, Peter will kill him. But, Stiles still tries to break out of Peter's hold, kicking his legs to get free, trying everything, and it's no use. 

“Yes, I did, _Stiles_ ,” he drops his mouth right against Stiles' ear, makes eye contact with Derek across the room. “Do you want to know what he said to me, with his _dying breath_ -” 

“ _Stop it_ ,” Stiles begs, eyes welling up with unshed tears. 

“ _Please don't do anything to my son_ ,” he mimics, voice high and mocking, eerie in its cruelty. He tries to hold Derek's eye contact, but he looks away, he has to. He can't stand to see Stiles being put through something like this while he just fucking stands there, useless as ever. “What do you think, Derek? Have I done about enough to the Sheriff's son yet?” 

Peter never wanted Stiles for any other reason than it was just plain _fun_ , for him. There's something so sick and twisted about that, to think of Peter only touching Stiles, underage and afraid, because he knew it would have a dead man rolling in his fucking grave – Derek could be sick. There's never been a time in his life where Derek has wanted to fucking kill Peter more, but his hands are tied. 

“You've done just about enough to everyone,” Derek snaps, keeping his face turned pointedly away. Stiles is sniffling, barely restraining himself from full on crying, and Peter doesn't care. 

“It's not going to be enough until _I say_ it's enough, until everyone in this city recognizes me for what I am, not the cops, and not anyone else, _me_.” 

And then, Peter makes a mistake. Derek had been sure, almost to the ninety-ninth percentile, that Peter was going to force him to stand there and watch Stiles die. Shoot him through the throat just like Derek had done to Theo – but Peter wouldn't fire a second shot through Stiles' head. No mercy kill. He'd leave Stiles there for the ten or so seconds it would take for him to bleed out, to not get air in his lungs, choking and gasping and spewing blood out of his mouth. Just to make Derek _see it_. 

He had been sure. 

Peter pulls his gun away from Stiles' neck for just a second, to gesture wildly toward the window overlooking the city, lit up by the sun in the early morning. For just one second, and he forgets that a person he's tormented and would love nothing more than to see him die is standing right up against his chest. 

Stiles reaches up and wraps his bony fingers around Peter's wrist, holding tightly enough that when Peter tries to move his arm, he can't. A shot fires up into the ceiling somewhere in the struggle as they stagger together and back, and then Stiles calls Derek's name. 

He moves, bridging the gap between them until he's wrestling Peter back, holding his free arm away from Stiles. The fight for the gun goes on, even as Peter doesn't have a leg to stand on in a two against one fight. Stiles might be clever and quick, but he's not that strong, not as strong as Peter or Derek, so the work of prying Peter's fingers one by one off the gun is taking what feels like minutes, but can only be seconds. 

As soon as Stiles has it, Derek thinks that'll be it. He holds it in his hand, and it should look strange to see, but it somehow – doesn't. At all. It looks almost natural. He has this look in his eyes, for just the second that he hovers there off to the side. It's a look that Derek has never seen on Stiles' face before, full of such genuine hatred and terror that he can't be in his right mind. 

Before Derek even has the chance to say no, don't, _Stiles think about this_ , Stiles lifts the gun, barely aims it, and fires. 

Derek staggers back, stupefied for the first time since this entire fiasco began, letting go of Peter's arm. The second he does, Peter falls onto the ground with a heavy _thump_ , and then there's silence. Stiles' face is grim, blank, nothing like it had been when Matt had been shot, or when Theo had been shot. He looks almost mechanical, robotic. Like he just _had_ to do that. He had to. He didn't have a choice. 

Stiles shot Peter right in between the eyes. A clean shot. He must have died instantly, didn't even have a chance to think about it or see his shitty life flash before his eyes. He's certainly dead – but that, for some reason, doesn't stop Stiles. 

He lifts the gun and fires again, and again, and again, and again, until the clip just _clicks_ , and Peter is unrecognizable. Jesus, Derek thinks, hand over his mouth. They're going to have to identify him by his fucking teeth. It's macabre, but Stiles doesn't even blink at the sight of it. 

When he turns and looks at Derek, they meet eyes. Derek doesn't know what Stiles reads there, written all over his face, but whatever it is, it must be something like shock, because Stiles says, “ _what_?” All indignant, or trying to be. His voice is shaking. “You think I wouldn't know how to use a gun?” He tosses the thing aside, angrily almost, and then he backs away from the body with his hands at his sides. 

Derek stands there for another second longer, processing. It's a lot to process. His mind whirs around and around in circles, focusing for seconds on the blood, and then on Stiles, and then on what he's going to do, and then – just nothing. A buzzing in his ears. 

Slowly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. 

“What are you doing?” Stiles asks, voice blank. 

“I'm calling the police,” he says, for probably the first time in his entire life. For Christ's sake, there's a dead body in his living room. Stiles' reaction to this is mostly just to press his back into the wall and curl down into himself, sliding down until he's in a tight ball. Misreading it, Derek says, “I'll tell them what happened, and they'll believe it. It is Peter, after all -” he might be talking just for something to say, just to fill the silence, prattling on when it doesn't even matter, “...and they'll just be happy he's gone, trust me, you'll be okay. You'll be questioned, but you'll get out, don't worry about it.” 

Stiles clasps his hands in front of himself, staring blankly up at the ceiling as Derek pulls the dial pad up. “My dad taught me how,” he says, and Derek pauses to look at him. Stiles just stares up, up at the few splatters of blood that made it all the way up onto the ceiling, hyperfocusing on them like something is written there, just for him. 

He says nothing else.

+

As Derek had said, Stiles winds up fine. _Fine_ , as in he didn't get shoved into a jail cell to await a trial, though they did try to swindle him into a psych eval, which he viciously declined with as much colorful language as Stiles is want to use. He shot Peter in the head _six times_ , in spite of the fact that the first shot killed him. Of course they wanted to give him a god damn psych eval. Derek wasn't opposed to it at all, for one, because God knows Stiles could really fucking use a good trip to the head doctor.

Stiles managed to get out with little more than six hours in the station, maybe just because of his connections to the deputies, or maybe just because they didn't know what else to do with him. He told them the truth, and so did Derek, and Peter Hale was dead. The ultimate scourge on their lives and jobs was gone, and that's all they cared about, at the end of the day. Parrish kept looking at Stiles the same way he always has, like he just didn't understand how Stiles ever got to this point, but he kept quiet, for the most part. There wasn't that much to say. 

With Peter gone, everything is different. The entire structure of the city seems flipped on its side, even as Stiles and Derek come out of the Sheriff's department for the second time in as many days, squinting up into the sun. 

In the car, Stiles says, “that was really fucked up.” 

Derek agrees, nodding his head. It was incredibly fucked up. 

“I just kept shooting,” he goes on, relaying this information as if he half believes his own memory of doing this himself is just something he saw in a movie once. Someone else had to have done that. Even Derek thinks it doesn't quite sound like Stiles, in spite of the fact that he saw it happen with his own two eyes. “I don't know why I just kept shooting.” 

Derek knows. The cops might've known too, if they were smart. In spite of all the times that Stiles tried to insist that Peter was just the same, and no worse than anyone else...he _was_ worse. Peter wasn't like the rest of the people Stiles has slept with. Derek knows that Peter at first tormented Stiles just as some sort of sick way to go against the Sheriff's one last dying wish, and just because he could. It was enjoyable for him, probably. No matter whatever monetary transactions there were between the two of them, the sheer fact is that Peter never cared about anything more than causing Stiles – and, in turn, Derek – physical and psychological harm. 

And it worked. Peter fucked with Stiles to such a degree that by the time Stiles got that gun in his hand, his only option was to fire. And to keep on going until Peter's face was gone, in hopes that in doing so he'd somehow be able to get it out of his own head, as well. What exactly Peter did to him, Derek will only ever know the half of it. 

He says none of this. Stiles would laugh at him, because that's how he is. 

“I have to live with that now.” 

“There are worse things to live with,” Derek mutters, jabbing his key into the ignition. He would know better than anyone else. 

“Well, I'm not like you, am I?” He challenges, actually sounding angry about it – Derek has long given up on trying to keep up with whatever the hell is going through Stiles' mind or how he gets from one emotion to the next. “I'm not like Lydia or Erica, either. I'm not – I thought I was tough for a second, but I know I'm not.” 

It's the fundamental truth. Stiles was never meant to be here to begin with. Underneath that facade he cultivates and maintains so carefully, there's nothing but the same kid that he was when he was sixteen years old. 

Clearing his throat, Stiles shifts in his seat before Derek can say anything. “Anyway. I bet your apartment is full of a bunch of randoms right now.” 

They're probably still pulling stuff off the _official murder scene_ , yeah, all blocked off with yellow tape and people wearing latex gloves, poking around at all of Derek's personal affects. Then, Derek has people coming to scrub the blood out of his floors and walls and ceilings. Because Stiles killed someone in his fucking apartment. 

“I'll just get my stuff later. You can take me downtown now, I guess.” Nonchalant, as though they're just leaving from a lunch outing instead of from an interrogation room. Stiles always tries to be like that, to act like nothing affects him at all, because he thinks it makes him seem above it all. He's not, is the thing. Derek knows Stiles better than that. He thinks that by now he can say that he knows Stiles better than most other people do – they've seen it all together, and Derek knows him inside and out. 

He knows that Stiles is young and stupid. He knows that Stiles needs to get off the streets before anything else can happen to him. He knows that Stiles is repressing dozens of memories even as they're sitting together, here and now. Then, Derek also knows what he has to do. 

Derek sits there with the engine running, still as a statue, as the breeze blows through his broken window. He glances at Stiles from the corner of his eye, sees that there's blood on his purple t-shirt, and makes a decision. He puts the car in drive, and moves away from the curb without a word. 

As they drive, Stiles stares out the window and jiggles his leg up and down. He might be thinking about what he's going to do tonight or how he's going to get his next ten dollars for his next meal – saving up money for another week-by-week motel room. Probably just anything that isn't about what just happened, or even what happened the day before that, or the day before _that_ , on and on and on. 

He's thinking so hard that he doesn't notice when they leave the confines of downtown, heading south toward where the neighborhoods sit, gated communities with their own grocery stores so you almost never have to go into the real _city_ if you don't want to. People like that are smart. 

Stiles wises up to the fact that they're going the wrong way only when Derek pulls onto a street that should be pretty familiar to Stiles, if only from his memories. He furrows his brow, looking at Derek with a suspicious look on his face. “Pit stop?” He asks. 

Derek shrugs his shoulders, driving forward past mailboxes and kids riding their bikes down sidewalks. This place, Derek doesn't come to very often, and when he does, it's not during the day time. It's as foreign to him as a completely different town altogether, the other half of the city that lives like normal people do. For the most part. There's not much _normal_ about Beacon Hills, but they do their best, at the very least. 

He reads the house numbers carefully as he remembers Scott's voice in his head, ignoring Stiles' fidgeting in the passenger seat, and finally slows to a stop outside a blue house with a red door, a familiar bike sitting discarded in the front lawn, tire blowing gently in the breeze. 

Stiles turns to look at him with what could be read as either betrayal or as disbelief – maybe a healthy mix of both. He looks like he wants to punch Derek right in his fucking face, or start yelling, or like he wants to get out of the car and start running and running. Just like he did when his father died. Streaming past green grass and tall maple trees until his feet met nothing but pavement, for miles on end, until he couldn't breathe anymore. 

He curls his fingers into fists on top of his knees, and then stares downward into the footwell. He looks almost ashamed, as though the house itself is looking at him, seeing him for how he is now and all the things he's done. 

“It's time,” Derek tells him, trying to sound understanding and gentle but probably coming across nothing like that at all. “It's been time for a while.” 

Stiles stays still. Then, he nods. He looks at Derek, and in his eyes there's nothing of the fight that Derek had thought they would get into as soon as they pulled up outside of Scott's house. There's nothing of indignance, nothing of anger. There's hurt and there's fear, the two emotions that Stiles might know better than all the rest. He must know that Derek isn't going to let him get away with running this time – that even if he goes inside and pretends like he's going to stay and then makes a break for it as soon as night falls, Derek will find out, find him, drag him back kicking and screaming. He knows. Derek can see it in his eyes. 

"I'm scared," he announces. It's not said as though he expects an answer from Derek, or like he wants someone to tell him there's nothing to be afraid of. It's just fact. He's scared, but he doesn't have a choice. Derek stays quiet, offering nothing - this is something that Stiles needs to do on his own. 

He finally looks away, licks his lips, and slowly takes off his seatbelt. His fingers find the door handle and then he's popping it open, moving as though he's being forced off the plank. One leg swings out onto the grass, and Derek can't help himself – he reaches out and takes Stiles' arm to stop him. 

Stiles turns back expectantly, mouth a thin line. 

Dozens of things buzz on the inside of Derek's head. Things to say ( _you could be so much better than this, you deserve everything the world has to offer you, I wish I could come with you_ ), things to do ( _kiss him, kiss him, kiss him_ ). 

He's not that brave, is the thing. He has never been that brave, so he does the spineless thing – the thing that'll keep him coming back to this moment again and again in his head in the months to come, wondering what he should have done differently. He clears his throat, looks Stiles dead in the eyes, and says, “you stay the fuck away from me.” 

It's in Stiles' best interest if they never see one another again. Stiles can sweep this period of his life under the rug, a dark mark, the chapter he never lets anyone else read. It'll be part of him, maybe, something he can't take back. Someday he'll be a new person, and he'll look back and think someone else had done all of this, and he just watched. 

But Derek is nothing but _this_. This is all Derek has. He doesn't have someone like Scott to go running to, he doesn't have a green grass place waiting for him when he decides to get his life together. This is his life. And Stiles should stay away. 

Stiles' chin wobbles, but he doesn't cry. He digs his hand into his back jean pocket, pulls something out of it, and then slams whatever it is on the dashboard. Without a word, he gives Derek an unreadable look, and then he's out of the car and closing the door behind him. 

He gets this feeling that there's no word for – that he's never going to see Stiles, not ever again. Even if he does. It won't be the same. They won't be the same. 

Because Derek is a masochist, he can't help but to sit there with his engine idling watching as Stiles walks across the grass and approaches the porch steps. He hesitates as he takes them one by one, and then hesitates again with his thumb hovering over the doorbell. 

Dropping his hand, he turns and looks down the street. It's different from the kinds of streets that he's known these part couple of years, the ones that he exiled himself to, but Derek can only hope that Stiles never misses the hum of the street lights. 

Finally, he rings the belle. When the door swings open, there's only a second of dead air before Stiles is being pulled into what must be Scott's mother's arms. It's a bone crushing hug, Derek can tell even from all the way over here – the kind you only ever get from people who really care about you. The hug lasts, and lasts, and Stiles is accepted and loved, even in spite of everything that he's done, something he was so terrified he'd never get to have again. 

Derek is gone before it's over.

When he stops at a red light on his way back into downtown, his eyes slide to the king of diamonds that Stiles had left for him on the dashboard. It sits and waits for Derek to take it. For some weeks afterward, he can't bring himself to even touch it.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the epilogue~

Erica leans back in her chair, one leg balanced by the ankle on top of her thigh, and grins. “You know, you could use some new furniture in here.” She pauses, considering. “And not just because Peter ate it in this exact room.” 

This has been a great source of mirth for Erica ever since she heard the news. After being released from police custody and getting off a murder charge on the basis of rightful self defense, she beelined it straight for Derek's place. It was only the day after Peter died, after Stiles went back to where he belonged, and he wasn't in the mood to deal with Erica. He was still working on getting the fucking blood stains out of his ceiling. He painted over it once, but the red bled through just enough to drive him crazy, so he ripped the entire section of dry wall out and replaced it. 

She had barged in without knocking, ignored Derek's sad sack routine on the couch, and walked straight into the dining room, scanning her eyes all over the floor. Then, she pointed at a specific spot, by the window, and asked , “is this the spot?” 

Derek shook his head. A little to the left. 

He had already ripped out and replaced the floorboards, so there's a slight discoloration between the new and the old that's barely noticeable except in direct sunlight. She walked right over to the spot Derek had pointed out, glared down at it with a furrowed brow, and then started to laugh. It was fucked up, but Derek didn't have anything to say about it. He'd be laughing, too, if it had happened in any other way, by anyone else's hand, in anyone else's god damn apartment. 

“This is all the stuff you got when you first moved in,” she goes on, tapping her chin in thought. “Redecorating would give you something to _do_ , you know.” 

“I'm not much for redecorating,” he says. Everyone is on his case about that lately. How he needs to start doing something, he needs something to do, he needs to have a place to go every single day that at least gives him some sense of purpose. Before, it was Pacers. After that, it was the streets. Now? Well. 

Now, he spends time driving from one end of the city to the other, edge to edge, highway to highway, just because he can. There's no such thing as _Raeken_ territory anymore, as far as the streets are concerned. There's only Hale as far as the eye can see and as far as a half a tank of gas can get you. If Derek had his way, there wouldn't be any _Hale_ territory. There wouldn't be any Hales left here, if he had a say. 

Every time he comes to the turn off to either take him back into the city or off onto the highway, he stops. For some reason, he still can't make himself leave. No one is stopping him. Nothing is keeping him here. He could go, anytime, like he always talked about. 

Sometimes he thinks he has unfinished business. But he doesn't like to dwell on that thought too much. 

Aside from that, he has no real _job_. He never did in his entire life, not even for the family business, but now it's more apparent than ever that he's doing nothing, absolutely nothing with his time except wasting it. Laura is the one who chose to take over the operation after Peter, and the first thing she did was get rid of nearly all of the people that Peter had hired. Got rid of meaning _fired_ , and not shot through the head and buried in a ditch somewhere. Luckily, that's not really Laura's style. 

She never asks anything of him, and he never goes anywhere near the meetings, or the lackeys, or any of it. It's how Derek likes it – out of sight, out of mind. 

“I could do it, then. First thing I'd do is put a waterfall -”

“Enough said,” Derek rolls his eyes, imagining the type of things Erica could do with a couple hundred thousand dollars and a construction crew. She'd paint the entire place purple and then throw a statue of Ronald McDonald into the mix to leer over Derek's bed, just for the shit of it. 

“Well you've gotta do something with yourself.” She crosses her arms over her chest and gives him a stern look, which coming from her doesn't really have the intended effect. “Lydia and I were talking, and we both agreed that you're listless as fuck.” 

Lydia, for her part, is still up to the same shit as before. She stalks people and takes their pictures and reports back to Laura for further instruction. At least now, she actually sleeps like a human person and keeps her hair neat. And now, Derek guesses, she's in cahoots with Erica talking about how he's a pathetic sack of nothing. 

_Listless as fuck_ is as close to an accurate descriptor for his life as Derek has heard yet, so he doesn't contest it. He just raises his eyebrows and then shrugs like _yeah, maybe_. 

“Well,” she says again, expectantly. “What are you going to _do_?” 

She really wants an answer, and that means Derek really has to give her one. He puts his chin in his palm and stares out his window – looks at the city where a dozen possibilities wait for him. And he doesn't want anything to do with any of it. “Maybe I will redecorate,” he says, just for something to say. “Or, move.” 

“Have you been being haunted on lately?” She grins, like she thinks this is _hilarious_. It's a nice thing to see, honestly. After Boyd died, and even after summer ended and everything else ended with it, she wasn't quite the same anymore. She still isn't, not all the way, and she will _never_ be the exact same person she was – but she's at least back to smiling and making jokes. She's learned to live with it, like the rest of them have learned to live with their own shit. 

“Yes. Peter's ghost visits me nightly.” 

“I'm surprised he hasn't possessed you yet,” she laughs, and Derek laughs along with her.

He's not _miserable_ , not by any stretch of the imagination. He has money, and a nice place to live, and a friend like Erica who comes to visit to make sure he's not dead in the bath tub or something, and a sister who calls him at least once a week, and he gets out of the house and goes for walks or drives - but he isn't happy. He's somewhere in-between the two, the spot between living and not living, stuck in the center. 

He doesn't know what he's going to do. 

One day in the middle of the afternoon, the intercom by his door buzzes. Which, it almost never does. Anyone who comes to see him regularly, like Erica and Laura and – well, nobody else – has their name written down with the front desk and can just breeze through security without any problem. They only buzz him about people who aren't on the list, which means there's either a salesman out there or someone else he doesn't very much want to see. 

He presses the call button, and the distinctly annoyed voice of the security guard comes yelling through the speaker because she never learned that she doesn't need to _scream_ into the microphone to make her voice heard. “There's a kid down here trying to come up.” 

Derek pauses, finger still pressing into the talk button. “A kid?”

There's a shuffling noise, and then her voice comes through, with a certain quality to her tone that suggests she's reading something. “It's a – a – Mava – Mavad – I can't pronounce -” then, a muffled voice interrupts her in the background. “...A Stiles Stilinski.” 

He releases the talk button and takes a step back. He doesn't know why. It's as if he half thinks that Stiles is going to come bursting right through it, unsolicited and uninvited. In a way, he already has, just from the flood memories Derek gets just from hearing that name. 

He and Stiles – they haven't seen each other in months upon months. Derek had told him not to come around again, and it seemed like he understood that well enough, and yet – apparently, he's here. In the lobby of his apartment building. 

“Mr. Hale?” 

Clearing his throat, he steps back and leans in close to the intercom. “I'll be right down,” he says, and then the line cuts off with a fizzle to let him know that she's not going to say anything more to him, for now. 

For a moment he just stands there, and then without thinking about it he glances down at himself to check what he's wearing. It matters to him what Stiles will think about what Derek looks like, after all this time they haven't seen one another. Does Derek look like he's doing any better than he was last time they spoke? Does he look like he's doing _okay_ , at least? It doesn't matter, he tells himself as he ties his shoes onto his feet. It doesn't matter. Stiles might just want something he left behind.

Derek has combed through his apartment on more than one occasion to meticulously collect any and every thing that Stiles left, shoving it all into a box in his closet. Some spare cards, clothes, that old backpack he left on the ground next to the coffee table. He probably should have thrown it all out, but he kept it instead. Told himself it was mementos more than it was him waiting for Stiles to come back, even when he knew it wasn't true. 

When he comes down into the lobby, Stiles is nowhere in sight. He glances at the security woman behind the desk, who points an aggravated finger toward the double doors leading to the courtyard and the parking lot with a grunt. Derek swallows, pulls down on the hem of his shirt, and walks out onto the pavement. 

Stiles is there. He's leaning back against an old car with his arms crossed over his chest, sunglasses on, smirking. The closer that Derek gets to him, the more minute details about him he's able to pick out. Like how his clothes look new and clean and neat, how there's gel in his hair, a cellphone sticking out of one of his front pockets. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a normal young adult. It's one of the weirdest things that Derek has ever seen in his life. 

Derek comes to a stop a foot or so away from where Stiles is still leaning, and then they stare at each other. It's hard to discern a facial expression from Stiles with those sunglasses on, but soon enough he's pulling them off and leaving them to dangle between two fingers at his side. He looks at Derek with bright eyes, cocks his head to the side. “Hey,” he says, and Derek stares. “It's me, remember?” 

There's a joking edge to his voice, and what else did Derek expect? “I thought I told you to stay away from me.”

Stiles shrugs, slow and deliberate. “Eh.” 

They stand there for another few seconds, just observing each other very closely, the way that people always do when it's been a while. It's December now, and summer is over, has been over for a very long time – the people they were when they knew each other are left behind in the haze of the heat. Or, maybe not. They might still be standing here looking at one another, if they only manage to look hard enough. 

“Look, I wasn't ever gonna just _not show up_ ,” he says the words like they're ridiculous, and like Derek was ridiculous for ever suggesting it in the first place, “though I am a little fucking surprised that you still live in this apartment.” 

“Why?” 

Stiles gives him a blank look. “Because a dude _died_ there, how about?” 

“It's not haunted, if that's what you're -”

“I didn't say _haunted_. But I am saying – you know. Someone definitely fucking died in there.” 

“Stiles,” Derek interrupts before he can say anything else, and he was looking like he was about to say _a lot_ else, “what are you doing here?” 

Stiles looks away. It's that same expression of embarrassment and reluctance, familiar in spite of the fact that Derek hasn't seen it in such a long time. “Melissa made me get my GED,” he starts, and Derek knows it isn't what he really wants to say. “So, I did that, and then I started classes at Beacon Community. I don't know. If you were wondering.” He scratches at his cheek uncomfortably, and then meets Derek eyes like he's dared himself to do so. 

Derek has wondered. Dozens of times, hundreds, thousands maybe, he's thought about what Stiles is doing. If he's all right. If he's gone, already. Derek always knew that Scott would call him if Stiles up and vanished again, and when the call never came, he thought that Stiles must be all right. It sometimes drove him crazy to not know, but every time he found himself picking up the phone to find Scott's number from an old received call list, he forced himself to stop. “That's great,” Derek says, because he doesn't know what else there is to say. 

“It is, it's great, it's awesome,” he nods his head, moves his hand like he's going to do something to his hair but stops at the last second when he remembers the gel. “And I came back here to tell you about that, because I thought you'd want to know, because I – I owe you -”

“You don't owe me anything,” Derek says quickly. 

Stiles looks like he saw that coming a mile away. “I never would've gotten there if you hadn't -”

“I got you into a lot,” Derek reminds him in a low voice, and Stiles sets his jaw and averts his eyes across the parking lot, where there's nothing to see. 

After a beat, Stiles clears his throat and looks back. Not right at Derek, but in his general direction. “I'm in therapy now, too, you know. To deal with my PTSD and all. It's a bunch of bullshit, like, look at this blob and tell me if you see anything -”

“They don't _really_ make you do the Rorschach test.” 

Stiles smiles, meeting Derek's eyes again. “No, that was a joke. She gives me these weird exercises to do whenever I start to think...” he trails off, and then begins again. “Repeating stuff I know is true, like where I live, how tall I am. Just to remind myself I'm here now and I'm not – there, anymore.” 

Derek remembers Stiles scoffing at the idea of _rape_ , rolling his eyes every time therapy was brought up, treated every thing that happened to him like it was just his life, and he was tough enough to handle it on his own. Looking at him now, as he twiddles his sunglasses in his fingers and frowns and says _PTSD_ , Derek thinks that maybe Stiles has gone ahead and grown up. “That doesn't sound like bullshit.” 

He nods, jaw tight. “I guess it's not. You wanna come get something to eat with me?” He flips the subject lightning quick, gesturing back to his car with a small smile. “I'm buying.” 

“That doesn't sound like a good idea.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because it – doesn't.” 

“Tell me a reason it's a bad idea.” 

Derek has spent so much of his time coming up with reasons to not go back to that blue house in the suburbs. To not look for Stiles, to not call Scott, to not think about him at all. He came up with things like _because we're different people now_ and _because Stiles and I were never even really friends_ and and _because it scares me to think that we were more than that._

As they stand there with the winter sun in Stiles' eyes, vastly different from the sun that Derek had known Stiles in, he can't think of a single one of them. Even the ones he can, he thinks they all sound stupid, made up, fake. He can't bring himself to say any of it. Stiles smiles with all his teeth, tilts his head and steps away from the passenger door, beckoning Derek toward it as he moves himself over to the driver's side. 

Derek gets inside. When Stiles plops down beside him, he pulls a cigarette out from the center compartment and lights it, rolling his window down. When he catches Derek looking, he shrugs. “Melissa tried to get me to quit, but it's harder than you'd think.” 

“I know, I've tried myself.” 

“With the anxiety and all -” he glances in his rearview mirror before backing away from the curb, “I convinced myself I need them, but that's not true.” 

Watching Stiles drive is like watching a dog walk on its hind legs for Derek. He's a decent enough driver, all things said, but he does have that attitude about the rules of the road that all people his age do – as though they only half apply to him and he can roll-stop through stop signs if he wants to. He's got his phone plugged into the shitty stereo and drums his fingers along to the music, chainsmokes, and in general just acts...normal. Last time he and Derek were in a car together – well. That wasn't very _normal_. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

They're stopped at a red light in the middle of the city, traffic clogging them up to the point where even when the light turns green they won't be able to make it through the intersection until it turns green a second time. “Depends on what it is,” Derek tells him. 

Stiles puts his cigarette out in the ash tray among a pile of others just like it, and sighs through his nose. “Those dreams you used to have about me – did they ever stop?” 

“Nightmares,” Derek corrects mildly, not meeting his eyes. 

“Yeah,” he agrees, voice quiet. 

In a way, they did. Derek stopped shooting Stiles' brains out every night, stopped having to watch Stiles' blood slowly trickle into the cracks in the sidewalk, because it just wasn't something that he worried about anymore. He thought that he'd never give himself or his fucked up life another chance to mess with Stiles, not even for a second. He thought that Stiles was gone.

In another way, they didn't. He started having these new ones, maybe every other night for weeks on end, where Stiles would be there in his apartment. He'd dig a hole and rack up a massive pile of dirt in the exact spot that he shot Peter in, shoveling until his hands would start to bleed and wouldn't stop even when Derek asked him to. When he was done he would jump inside, vanish like falling through a rabbit hole, and Derek would wake up. “They got worse,” Derek says. 

Stiles nods, lips in a tight line, but he has nothing to say to that. 

When he pulls up outside of Applebee's, Derek can't help but laugh. Stiles looks at him, amused. “What?” He demands, a smile spreading across his face. “It's our spot.” 

“Sure,” Derek agrees. 

They wind up sitting in the exact booth that they had gotten last time, both on the same sides they had chosen before, and Stiles looks like he wants to make a comment on it, but doesn't. Derek doesn't much want to bring it up himself either, maybe because bringing up Stiles' past might just make him upset, and Derek doesn't want to do that. 

“I got a real job at the library,” he tells Derek as he plays with the straw in his soda, bouncing it up and down in the ice so it scrapes against the plastic of the cup. “It kind of sucks, because _everyone_ in the city goes to the fucking library at some point or another, and – sometimes people recognize me, you know?” 

Apparently, Stiles actually doesn't mind talking about his old life, at all. Or, as is more likely, there's not much else he can talk to Derek about. The whole time they knew one another, that was who Stiles was, so naturally, they have to talk about it. Derek frowns and looks out the window. 

“...I mean, they can't exactly say anything to me, and neither can I, but they see me, and I see them, and it's like – I don't know. Sometimes I ask myself how I could've done all that shit. It feels like it wasn't me, but of course, it was, I have the memories. Feels like it's just something I read in a shitty book sometimes, but it was me.” He draws in a shaky breath and starts tearing up his napkin with meticulous fingers, glaring pointedly down at his work. “I'm still learning to live with everything I did. Mostly, I try to forget.” 

Forgetting never really works. The harder you try to forget, the more you remember. Derek has done the same with Stiles, and instead of being forgotten, he digs graves in Derek's apartment nearly every night. “Compartmentalizing is a better way to go,” Derek says, and Stiles' lips turn up at the corners at the reminder of the conversation they'd had, months ago. 

“Yup. File it all away until it manifests itself in uglier ways. That's how we do things.” 

Stiles gets the bacon cheeseburger and forces Derek to do the same, so by the time they're finished eating, Derek is busy scrubbing fruitlessly at a ketchup stain on his white t-shirt and Stiles is heckling him mercilessly. “That's why you don't wear white when you go out to eat. Everyone knows that, dumbass,” he wags his finger, and Derek rolls his eyes. 

After another few moments of attempted stain removal, Derek gives up and tosses his napkin onto his empty plate, leaving himself with an ugly wet red mark right in the center of his chest. Stiles looks at it for a second, like he's about to start laughing again. But, instead, he looks down at where his fingers are splayed out on the table top, and sucks in a deep breath. “Look,” he says, and Derek has learned that's what he says when he isn't kidding around, anymore. “I'm going to Beacon right now, but I really want to – I want to transfer out of state and go someplace else.” 

Well, of course he does. It's what Stiles had always said, with such conviction that Derek always believed him even when it seemed so unlikely to happen. He always said he'd get out of here as soon as he got the chance, and now here he is, with the opportunity sitting right in front of him, and of course, he's going to take it. And of course, he should. “That's great,” Derek says after clearing his throat. “Where?” 

Stiles smiles. “Far.” As far as humanly possible. Shit, if Stiles could transfer to fucking Thailand, he'd be there in a heartbeat. 

“That's great,” he says it again. It is, it's great, it's amazing, and Stiles deserves to go. Derek looks at his hands. Out the window. At anything but at Stiles' face. 

Stiles' fingers drum on the table top for a second of silence, and then he's puffing himself up a bit, squaring his shoulders and taking in another deep breath. “And I think you should come with me.” 

Looking at him, he just seems so serious. It sounds ridiculous in Derek's ears, the idea of it, the way he says it like it'd be as easy as that, but Stiles isn't smiling. He's _serious_. “Stiles...you know I can't.” 

“Um -” Stiles scoffs. “I know you _can_. I know you told me -”

“A long time ago.”

“... _not_ that long ago, actually. You said you would if you could, and now you can, and I'm asking you to go with me.” He furrows his brow and looks angry at Derek for even having the balls to say something so horrible, and Derek shakes his head. 

“It's not – you don't -” 

“Stop making stupid excuses. Pe-” he takes a deep breath through his nose, and then breathes it out, like saying the name out loud is now another one of the exercises his therapist has given him.“ _Peter_ is dead, and Laura does everything herself. There's nothing _for you_ here.” Briefly he's looking away, and then he looks back, slightly more brave. “When I leave, there'll be nothing.” 

Derek stares at him, long and hard. “What makes you think you're the only reason I haven't left yet.” 

Stiles' lips turn up at the corners, a ghost of a smile, and it feels out of place for the conversation they're having right now, in a family style restaurant within anyone's ear shot. “I know you said you didn't love me,” and Derek can still feel the weight of those words on his tongue, from that night where they got closer than they've ever been before, and it feels dirty, now. Wrong. “...but I don't know. I've been thinking – I don't really know what it's like, so what the hell do I know? But just...I think sometimes. About you. I don't think it's the way I've ever thought about anyone my entire life. I've never been so close to someone as I was to you. You said you didn't – but I just don't think you were telling me the truth.” 

Derek can't meet his eyes. Stiles doesn't sound angry about it even in the least bit, but all the same, Derek feels somewhat ashamed. He had a chance to tell Stiles how he felt, and even being confused about it all isn't enough of an excuse. He had a lot of chances to tell Stiles how he felt. But he just never wanted to be standing in the way of what Stiles needed, where he needed to go. 

Yet, here he is, about to pack his bags, and he's asking Derek to take the leap with him. 

He still struggles to say the words, though, so Derek pulls his wallet from his pocket and fishes a card out from among the rest. He slides it across the table, until it sits there in the center between them. 

Stiles grins at it, reaching out to gently stroke across the card's face. The king of diamonds. “You kept it,” he says. 

“I did.” 

“You still dream about me.” 

“I do.” 

For a moment, Stiles looks so overwhelmed by the information it's almost like he's about to explode. He smiles and stares at that card and all its incrimination of what exactly it is that Derek thinks about him, of what Derek has always thought about him. Then, he pushes the card back in Derek's direction, offering it to him once more, as though it's his to keep for always, no matter if they leave here as strangers once again. “Come with me,” he repeats. 

Derek takes in a breath. “I can't just go anywhere and get a clean slate. My name -”

“Change it,” Stiles shrugs. 

“You think it's that easy?” 

“I think you're still making excuses. What are you really afraid of? Are you scared that there's nothing out there for you? That you're no better than this piece of shit city? You are,” he says this with so much conviction Derek can't help but believe him. “Both of us deserve so much more than this, and I'm going to go. But don't make me leave you behind.” 

Derek looks into his eyes, at this person who Derek has seen go through the worst that the city has to offer over and over again, who suffered so much because he thought he deserved it, who came out the other side with scars that he doesn't even bother trying to hide. He'll go even if there's no one brave enough to follow him – but Derek realizes that he could follow Stiles anywhere. To the ends of the earth, if that's as far as Stiles wanted to go. 

“When are we going?” 

Across from him, Stiles grins. “The summer. Of course.” 

Of course. One day soon, in the middle of the heat, Stiles and Derek will leave every thing behind before the sun gets another chance to set over the tops of the buildings in this city. They'll be gone. It doesn't feel real, not yet, but Stiles has that look in his eye like hell or high water couldn't keep him from what he wants. He got those mountains tattooed in permanence on his chest not because this city has anything in it he wants to remember – but because the other side is waiting for him. 

As he's about to open his mouth to say something else, their waitress appears and drops a slice of carrot cake with a lit candle sticking out of it right in front of Derek's place. Derek stares at it, and then looks across the table to find Stiles practically vibrating out of his seat. “No...” Derek says, because there's no way, _no way_ that Stiles is doing this to him when it _isn't even his birthday_. 

All the same, the clapping and the birthday song begins, and Derek thinks momentarily about melting into a puddle or flat out leaping over the back of his seat to get away. The seconds tick by, miserably, _tortuously_ , and then he meets Stiles' eyes. 

Stiles shrugs his shoulders, still grinning from ear to ear. “I told you I'd pay you back,” he says over all the noise, unapologetic as ever. 

In more than ways than one, Stiles has. For everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading this whole huge story and for dealing with my annoying e-mail updates lmfao. I really hope you enjoyed it and I hope this ending was happy enough to make up for all the SUFFERING


End file.
